


#LesMiraculeux #esc2020 #FRA

by Inknpaperlove



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fanon Chloé Bourgeois, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Grey Eyed Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Human Kwami, LadyNoir - Freeform, Ladynoir friendship, Love Love Peace Peace was used as a guide, Mutual Pining, No Magic AU, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Side Pairing But Still Important: Chlolya, eurovision au, secret identities are still a thing, so be ready for all the good eurovision cheese, that's right folks I'm doing this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2020-03-05 09:03:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18825496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inknpaperlove/pseuds/Inknpaperlove
Summary: No magic Eurovision AUThe last few years the Eurovision Song Contest has been stuck in ballad land, so France decided to say: eff this. If we don’t do anything fun this year we’ll all die. Which is how two anonymous singers dressed up as superhero magical girls ended up becoming the unexpected sensation of the year. This is a story following along their journey.(You don't have to know anything about esc - stuff will be explained)





	1. The Offer

**Author's Note:**

> I started to plan this two years ago and I got in too much over my head with research and fact checking I totally scared myself off of this and I also got majorly stuck at the song. So for the calm of my mind (and to get this out BEFORE the actual 2020 Eurovision, in case I guessed right some of the stuff they could be doing) I’m just gonna wing it!
> 
> Just for clarity, this "deviates" from our Eurovision as of 2017 when I first started to work on this, so none of the comments on their Eurovision 2018/19, apply to our respective esc years. I probably will reference the pre-2017 years though.
> 
> That said, this is planned out but not pre written. I didn't want to do this, because I know myself and my finishing-things abilities, and I'm also working on my bachelor's thesis rn and I should really prioritize that. But I'm losing time and also!! the first semifinal airs tonight!! I'm so excited, so I thought why not celebrate and post the one chapter I actually do have :) So enjoy!

„ I want you to sing for me. In Eurovision.“

„ _What?!_ “ Marinette exclaimed, almost spilling tea she was holding.

She was sitting in a café on the corner of the street across the Tom & Sabine bakery, enjoying a free afternoon with her dear friend Tikki, when the songwriter decided to drop this on her.

“What do you mean, sing for you in Eurovision? I can’t just go and do that!”

Tikki shook her head and put down her coffee.

“No, no, let me explain. I wrote a song. I know, that’s what I do, but hear me out. I worked my butt off on it, but it doesn’t fit into anything the studio is doing right now and I don’t want to just put it in my drawer and not see it in the next ten years. It’s a pet project of a sort and I thought, well, I always wanted to try applying something of mine to Eurovision, just to try it out, but then I got really into it and...”

“... and you just got so caught up in it you really want to go through with it now,” Marinette finished.

“Yes.” Tikki nodded, not even a bit sheepish.

She always had big dreams and could get really headstrong following up with them. Even with other people - if Tikki decided you were destined for greatness, she was going to push and enthusiastically encourage till you succeeded.

“I already had some singers contracted to Plagg cover it, but I don’t know, I just don’t feel it. I even tried to rework it from a duet, but that was even worse. I just need the right people and ... I think it would really fit you, Marinette.” She picked up her cup again and sipped from it, her eyes not leaving Marinette’s.

Marinette sighed and took a sip of her tea. Green with jasmine, her favourite. She loved the taste and it always calmed her mind. Not now though, she thought, might need a horse tranquilizer for that.

“Tikki, the last time I preformed in front of any kind of a public was with the choir when I was 16. And just because I got solo parts doesn’t mean I’m a solo singer. Or any kind of a singer, I mean, I didn’t train in years.” She shook her head. “No, I just can’t do it, sorry.”

“But you still sing all the time! Your voice range is great and I’d get you voice training before the show. Just, at least think about it, please. Besides, the song doesn’t even have to get picked in _Destination_ anyway.”

The waiter interrupted them, bringing their ordered cake slices. They thanked him and sank their forks in the fluffy delicacies.

“So they decided to keep it?” Marinette asked with her mouth full.

“Hm?”

“ _Destination Eurovision_. They decided to keep it? I mean, after what got voted for this year...” Marinette made a face.

Trying out a national selection process to pick the songs to represent France, letting the public decide, might have sounded like a good idea and it did work out for loads of other countries, and even France the last few year. But this year, the public of France did not please Marinette’s tastes.

“Yeah, they did. But they made some changes - the board will review the songs first and pick just ten to participate in the concert, then people will vote. So you see, we don’t even have to get as far as that.”

Tikki shrugged, pretending that the thought of not getting picked didn’t hurt her creative ego.

“Though, this year’s ballad snooze fest might make even our song look at least a bit better than it is. I mean come on, yes, a ballad won the last two years, but that doesn’t mean I want to see forty of them this year. ”

“And they’re so same! Like, almost a third of them are some guy moaning about the friendzone. I hope they get thrown out in the semi finals, so the finale is at least a little watchable. Though Norway’s ballad is pretty good, and Slovakia’s too. And Greece and Azerbaijan did good, nice melodies.”

Marinette stabbed her last piece of cake with her fork, raised it and studied it.

“You said it was a duet? Your song?” she mumbled, her chin propped up on her hand, as she twirled her fork, putting way more attention to her cake than necessary, before eating it.

“Yes, I did.” Tikki cocked her head on the side.

“So, if I were to sing one part, not saying I will, who would sing the other?”

“Do you know Nino Lahiffe? He’s an upcoming director, he did that movie with the monster with that famous guy, came out around Christmas?”

Marinette frowned, confused, but nodded.

“Yeah, Alya took me to see it. Nino’s actually a friend of hers, we’ve never met though. Eh, Inspector Jones was the movie called?”

“Yes! That’s it. Lahiffe did the soundtrack for it too, with our studio, and a friend of his did the singing and oh, Marinette, your voices would sound so great together.” Her eyes were practically glowing. “Plagg contacted him and they’re meeting tomorrow to discuss this.”

“So Plagg’s in this too? Should have guessed.”

“Of course he is. He’s my producer, he knows better than to try stifle my genius. Thing is, the guy, the other singer, he’s all about anonymity. Plagg won’t even tell me his name, he says he’s pretty known and is trying to lay low now.”

“And convincing him to be a part of the flipping Eurovision Song Contest is your idea of laying low?” Marinette raised her eyebrow.

“Actually, I have a plan for this. The song is based around the concept anonymity, secrets we keep inside of ourselves and the masks we wear in front of people, so I thought, why not go all out? Why not have a duo of singers, who don’t disclose their identity! Wearing literal masks!” She made a pause, her hands gesticulating wildly in excitement.

“It’d be completely anonymous! I mean, yeah, a few people would know, but everyone would be contracted to silence. It’s actually another problem we have with the other singers - if I were to get just one of you two and one of them, they wouldn't go for it. Everyone wants to keep their name and of course they do, Eurovision is a huge thing, great exposure. So see? You're off the hook if he says no. But it’d really go with the song and we didn’t do anything fun for Eurovision is years! Besides, for the two of you, it might just work. He keeps his secrets and you, well, I thought it might be easier for you to go along with this, if no one knows it’s you.”

Tikki finished and gulped her coffee to calm her dry throat.

“Still, I don’t know, Tik,” Marinette murmured.

Tikki smiled and caught her hand in her own, giving it a squeeze.

“You don’t have to decide right now. Just think about it and give me a call.”

Marinette sighed.

“Alright then.”

They finished their drinks and called the waiter for the bill. They hugged and said goodbye, Tikki reminding Marinette to keep it quiet enough, so the rumour doesn’t spread. After all, she was kind of a pretty big name songwriter and her song participating in Eurovision would make music news.

A week later, two underwhelming Eurovision semi-finales aired, followed by a less underwhelming and much less generic-ballad-filled Eurovision finale.  To the immeasurable surprise of the newly returned Slovakia their string quartet metal ballad was crowned the winner.

Two weeks later, nervous, but determined, Marinette called a not so surprised Tikki. This was a challenge, after all, and since when did Marinette Dupain-Cheng back down from one of those without even trying.

“I’ll probably regret this, but I’ll do it.”


	2. The Meet and Greet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where they meet for the first time and introductions are made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter! Can y’all believe it? I surprised myself too, really. Oh, the power of procrastination

Adrien was really not sure about this. When Pierre Bonheur, his best friend’s music producer, called him about this offer, he nearly laughed it off. After a while, and with Plagg - as he liked to be called - explaining it would all be anonymous, he started to see the appeal.

Contemplating the idea, there was a good chance he won’t actually end up in Eurovision. After all, the author would have to pick him and the other singer he’ll be paired with, never mind that the song itself doesn’t have to get picked by the board _and_ the audience of _Destination_. So really, why not? It could be fun.

At least that’s what Adrien had been thinking when he called Plagg and accepted the offer. Standing in front of the recording building, feeling very silly wearing a paper carnival mask, he wasn’t so sure.

Most of all, he wasn’t sure the mask will actually keep his identity secret. He might have gotten out of his father’s reach and the interest of the media, changing his surname to his mother’s maiden name, moving out with Nino and only ever doing the rare photoshoot for the money boost, but he was still quite known. If this ever got out and his father heard about it... well, let’s just say Gabriel Agreste’s opinion on Eurovision was low enough that Adrien could get in another spat with him for associating with it and ‘ruining the Agreste name’ despite not bearing it anymore.

Too late for that, though, he thought as he raised his hand to knock on the studio doors. He was sent the song two weeks ago, to learn it and today was the first time he’d meet his singing partner, for their first joined practise. He’s already met the author, Tikki, and did some practices and trainings with her and her vocal coach, seeing as he’d never been properly vocally trained, and so has his partner, but today was the first time they’ll be meeting each other.

 

It wasn’t Plagg who opened the studio door, but his sister.

“Hello! Come on in.” Tikki waved him inside.

“We’ll have to wait a bit more as your partner is running a bit late, would you like something to drink in the meantime?” She gave him a brilliant smile.

Adrien asked for a cup of water and hung his trench by the door. The fact that neither she, nor Sabrina Raincomprix, the vocal coach standing in the corner of the room, chatting with Plagg, haven't recognized him so far, was giving him a bit more confidence, but the real test was still to come. Maybe he was just paranoid - he was only rarely recognized by strangers nowadays, but Plagg warned him that Tikki’s chosen singer had a background in fashion and to try and be cautious around her. Tikki loved the idea of having the two of them not know each others’ identities, as it would deepen the mystery and intrigue she was planning on building up around the duo. While Plagg himself didn’t think it necessary, he went along with it and well, if the reveal did happen, as long as it didn’t get out, it wasn’t a deal breaker.

“So, have you decided on your name yet?” Plagg asked.

“Sorry, I haven’t, no.” Adrien scratched the back of his neck. “I just... don’t really know what to do with it. I didn’t want to choose a random normal name, but then I just don’t know what else I could do. Has my partner decided already? If so I can just think of something alongside hers, so the type of the names matches.”

“She did! She’s going with Ladybug because, as she said, ‘she could use some of the good luck’.” Tikki spoke up, handling Adrien his glass before sitting down next to him on the couch.

“Oh that’s nice. I could go with Chat Noir, since black cats are supposed to be unlucky, so it can mirror her name well. And it matches the animal theme. Is there a reason she chose Ladybug over Coccinelle, or-?”

Tikki shook her head.

“Not really. She just thought it’d be easier to recognize for the other countries.”

“Chat Noir should work though,” said Plagg. “It’s easy enough and if we incorporate your themes into the styling, it will be pretty obvious anyway.”

They were nodding along when a sudden rushed knocking interrupted them and the door flew open.

Adrien felt his mouth fall open at the sight before him. Leaning heavily on the doors, trying to catch her breath, stood a vision of a young woman. Strands of midnight black hair have fallen out of her chignon, her clothes, a collared shirt and chequered pants, were rumpled and messed up, the bag hanging from the crook of her elbow half open with a sweater spilling out, her whole face glowing red from running, a simple spotted mask laying crookedly over it, wisps of hair plastered to her forehead. She was a perfect picture of a dishevelled mess and the most beautiful woman Adrien has ever seen.

“I’m here! I’m so sorry I’m late, seriously I lost all bearing of time and didn’t notice until too late and-” She gulped in a deep breath, shook her head and closed the door behind her.

Tikki laughed. “Don’t worry. I gave you a bit earlier time, so you don’t run into Chat Noir when you two arrive, and he just came in, so you’re not _that_ late.”

The mention of his code name shook Adrien out of his stupor. Rapidly he stood up and went over to the person, who would hopefully become his partner in this mad journey.

“Oh.” She blinked a few times, only just noticing his presence, and held out her hand.

“Hi! I’m ... um ... you can call me Ladybug.”

He took her hand in his.

“Pleasure to meet you, Miss Ladybug. I’m Chat Noir.”

They shook their hands, both seemingly dazed. Then she started to giggle, her light grey eyes sparkling.

“Pleased to meet you too, M. Noir. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

 

* * *

 

As timid as she was during casual conversation, when it got to coaching, Sabrina Raincomprix took over with a firm hand. First she had them do various warm-up exercises, as usual, and then she walked them slowly trough the duet, not afraid to correct any mistakes right away and have them repeat a part several times to get it right.

When they finally got to sing the whole song together for the first time, start to finish, Tikki was positively glowing.

“I can’t believe you two sound as good together as I thought you would,” she said at the end of the session. “It’s like you guys get better every time you run it through.”

“Of course, it will still be a lot of work,” said Sabrina. ” Your articulation in the second verse wasn’t clear enough, Ladybug, and Chat? You raised your larynx again for the high notes, so please do continue the exercises I gave you alongside the warm ups.”

Adrien nodded solemnly.

“But otherwise I think it’s a great start. I can work with this. Work on correcting these problems and the next time, we’ll get into harmonizing you - you’re doing a good job, but I want this to be perfect.”

If Adrien could say, singing wasn’t the only thing that was going well. He was very nervous about today - meeting his partner for the first time was a big thing, what if they didn’t click together and this whole thing ended before it could even begin? Yes, Adrien wasn’t very sure about it at first, but now, in the face of Tikki’s unending enthusiasm, and the fun they were having, he found himself getting more and more attached.

The atmosphere in the room was great and Ladybug, well. Ladybug was, in his own humble opinion, absolutely amazing. He didn’t click this well with anyone ever since he met his best friend Nino.

At first, he was afraid she was going to recognize him, from the lingering looks she gave his face, mixed in with suddenly averting her eyes and blushing, but that didn’t seem to be the reason. Soon, their initial shyness has dissipated and they were teasing each other for repeated mistakes, giggling together when Sabrina was looking through her notes, mostly trying to hide her smiles. Tikki, providing accompaniment at the upright piano, joined in every now and then, and even though Plagg, who stayed because he wanted to see how they all work together, brought a pile of paperwork with him, he too could be heard snickering.

When they all packed up to leave for home, it was later in the evening than anyone expected. And yet, when Adrien said goodbye to Ladybug, with a grandiose bow and a kiss on the hand, he couldn’t help himself but wish they didn’t need to leave at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: The Waiting Game
> 
> If I didn’t do a good enough job explaining something, feel free to ask! Thank you for reading, hope you liked it!


	3. The Waiting Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song recording, catch-ups, and Big News from Slovakia about the 2020 event!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES TIS ME I’M BACK! Now that my bachelor’s thesis (is that what it’s called in English?) is all done and safely turned in to be criticized by my opponent, now I can fully put myself into other stuff, like, eh, this thing. Now, I have two things I wanted to say up first:  
> 1) You may have noticed that the chapter count went down by two. I miscounted how many chapters I have planned and realized there’re only twelve of them, so I changed it. Oops, my bad.  
> 2) The song. Yes you’re going to get a tidbit of the song. A sneak peak, if you will. I studied French for like 3 semesters and have a decent XP count on Duolingo, but that doesn’t mean I can work my way through writing a song in it. Not even close. So can we all collectively pretend the song is, in fact, in French? (I could ask a friend to translate it, but then I’d have to put in the English version too for non-French speakers, and ... it’s just easier like this.) More on the song in the end notes, because it got too long.

“ _’Cause in you I believe!_ ” Ladybug and Chat Noir sang the final line together, side by side in the sound booth, each in their own microphone with big headphones over their ears.

They’ve been there the entire afternoon, putting together a record to apply for Destination Eurovision. The room was quite full with people - aside from Theo Barbot, Daniel Delacroix and Annette Dabos, the record company’s musical director and sound board operators, Sabrina was there, Plagg was overseeing everything and Tikki and the composer, Mireille Caquet, were making sure their precious song was in good hands. All this attention was making Marinette uncomfortable, but she tried to overcome it. After all, she had so many performances with her choir when she was younger and there were far more people watching those. And, of course, if they succeed, she might end up performing in front of the whole of Europe. And parts of the Middle East. And Australia. So really, what’s the pressure?

She was really glad for Chat’s silent encouraging smiles he kept throwing her at the beginning of the session to help calm her down, because the way her hands were shaking when she came in was unreal. All the people and important looking equipment was really driving the weight of the situation in.

“Right, that was great, guys.” Sabrina interrupted her thought process.

Theo nodded along with her. “All good here.”

Sabrina got up to go closer to the booth, though they could hear her just fine through the headphones.

“Just a few details - Ladybug? You went in just a tiny bit too high for the first chorus again. I know the prechorus tricks you to do that, and you hit it most of time, but you were slightly off. Just a tiny bit, but still.”

Marinette nodded. That part was troubling her more than she would like. She worked on the song and her voice dutifully at home, and the company sent her a recording of the melody line for her voice along with the instrumentation recording, but this kept evading her.

“Great,” said Sabrina. “Chat? Try to give more emphasis on the beat for the chorus, you’ve had it, but it got a bit lost this time. ‘ _Though I FEAR, to reVEAL, to exPOSE, to lay DOWN my heart_ ’, okay? Same with the third line - ‘ _I may FEAR, to reVEAL, lose the MASK that I hide BEhind_ ’.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” Chat ran a hand through the hair on the back of his head, making it stick up all over.

“Otherwise great, we’re almost there. One more time then?” She looked over the room.

“Sure. Just one more thing,” Plagg said from his place leaning against a wall.

They all looked up at him. He didn’t talk much into the process, letting the professionals handle that, but when he did speak up, it tended to be important.

“You guys know you don’t have to look all mushy and besotted when you sing the intro, right? Save it for the live act, people will eat it up, but I won’t be able to stomach it much longer.”

Marinette blushed up to her ears, refusing to look at her partner. She didn’t think that she was that obvious. Besides the song was a bit cheesy anyway - she was just in character. And so was he, probably.

“Plagg!” Tikki scolded him. “You can’t do this, look at them! Besides, it’s good cheese! It fits the song!”

“Camembert is a good cheese, this is ruining my appetite.”

Tikki huffed and Marinette did her best to be very interested in a loose thread on her hem and not look at Chat. His face was probably split in two with a grin, the flirt he wa- nope. She caught his reflection in the booth’s glass panels. He was just as red as she was. How awkward could this get.

“From the top?” asked Theo.

Plagg nodded.

“Alright then.” He gestured to the sound board operators and at Marinette and Chat in the booth.

“ _We met just last night, pretty lady, you shined brighter than a star_ ,” started Chat.

And really, how was she supposed to keep a straight face like that. So she held her cheeks from smiling as she sang.

“ _To confess, you have caught my eye, with the beauty of your smile_.”

 

* * *

 

“My goodness, Marinette, will you stop giggling at your phone?” said Alya in exasperation, as she sat down across from her.

She put down their two icy cold milkshakes, heaped with hot forest fruit and whipped cream, shaking her head at her best friend. It was a hot afternoon mid July, and Marinette was meeting up with her friend for a long postponed catch up. Except, while she was waiting for Alya to order for them, dutifully guarding the table for two she snagged in front of the café, she was, indeed, making faces at her phone.

Or more precisely, making faces on what Chat sent her on twitter. Since they were supposed to keep their identities secret, but didn’t want to fall out of contact - now that the recording was done and turned in, and they had to wait until November to find out if their song gets picked for Destination - so they both created twitter accounts under their alias’. It was fun, getting to know Chat more. Sure, they will see each other again, they have scheduled a few meetings with Sabrina, so she can make sure they don’t slack off on their exercises, but apart from that, they can’t really see each other, as hanging out in masks looks kinda weird from outside perspective. And it still feels weird from Marinette’s inside perspective too. So they became internet friends instead.

“What do you have there that’s so important anyway?”

“Um.” Marinette flushed and hoped Alya will write it up to the heat.

“Nothing. Just this post.” she quickly exited out of her DMs and swiped to Chat’s latest post - a photo of a cat with its head stuck in a slice of toast bread, he tried to recreate the famous photo but his cat couldn't apperantly care any less - and showed it to Alya.

“And that deserved the excessive giggling?” Alya raised an eyebrow. “Look at you, turning into a cat person. Have you forsaken hamsters now?”

“No.” Marinette made a face at her, put away her phone and dug into her milkshake.

“So anyway, how’s the job hunt going?” she asked.

“Ugh. Don’t remind me. I had an interview with Le Figaro the other day and it was a complete disaster. Le Monde got back to me to regretfully inform me they don’t want me. And my internship is almost over and, no, they’re not gonna hire me either. Why do they even offer internship programs when they know they have all positions full? They should hire at least someone, not tell us all to find luck elsewhere. Their reccomendations don't even count for that much.”

Alya sighed and poked her spoon into the milkshake.

“I’m sorry. What about the France Télévisions one? I know it’s PR and not reporting, but..” Marinette leaned over the table, to squeeze her forearm in support.

“Still waiting to hear from them. You’re so lucky you got the costume designer position for Palais-Royal right after school. I know it doesn’t pay much and it isn’t really what you wanted, but I’ve seen the state of your website, young lady. You get way more commissions than you thought you would, don’t you.”

Marinette blushed. She really was very lucky in that department.

Alya’s phone beeped.

She took it out and checked out the notification. She frowned and swiped a few times at her screen.

“Sorry, it’s my boss - they shoved me in the entertainment section for the rest of my stay as my previous boss is on holiday. There’s some Eurovision news I’m supposed to write an article for.”

“Already? There’s not usually much news this early, is there?”

Alya skimmed the message.

“Slovakia made some announcement - the theme will apparently be released in September, along with host city - nothing unusual. Countries may announce their entries from start of August to the end of the year. And there are some changes to the song requirements?” She took a sip of her drink.

“As the 2020 event will become the 65th year of the competition, we decided to take a look in the past. We’d like to announce our decision to allow for life music on and below the stage. As accompaniment will be provided live, the applied songs will have to be submitted along with sheet notes, for the musicians to learn and with instructions for sound boards in midi. Every delegation will be allowed to bring their own musicians, if they want, but those will still fall under the limit of maximum six performers per country rule. After long negotiations between the EBU and the national broadcasters, we also have the honour to announce the revival of the national language requirement?” Alya’s eyebrows shot up.

“Applied entries have to be 100% in the respective nations national or minority language. As there have been studies that showed that songs in English tend to get preferential treatment by the voters, we strongly encourage the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia to look outside of the box, as well as countries with English as one of the official languages - from confirmed contestants Malta, Cyprus and Israel. The debates as of whether the same should be applied to France, Belgium and Switzerland, as French is the second official language of the Eurovision Song Contest, have been ended with a decision for the negative. Officially translated lyrics will be submitted to all the broadcasters to play during the events to ensure everyone has the same chance. It continues on, but that’s the gist of it.”

Marinette put her milkshake down. So that’s why Tikki was complaining that the France TV website was having some weird stuff about possible song application requirements change when Plagg was applying their project. EBU probably sent a notice earlier to not say anything until the announcement, but to give warning.

“That’s... That’s big,” she finally managed to say.

“It sure is! I’m so happy they want me to write this. I’m sorry, I’ll have to leave earlier to work on the article, though. We haven’t seen each other in ages!” Alya apologizes, putting away her phone and calculating how long can she stay and still write her article before her deadline.

“But hey, looks line next year will be really interesting. I wonder how the countries will react to that. I mean, they said it was a mutual decision, but I’m sure there will be some drama to see. There always is.”

 

* * *

 

It was still the afternoon, but it was already dark out in the early November day, and Marinette was happily sewing away altering a suit jacket for a play at her theatre. A podcast was playing in her earbuds, her phone beeping from time to time with a notification of a new message from Chat. She's really gotten used to chatting with him the last few months.

They didn’t really use their twitters much aside from talking to each other, sometimes they just posted silly things for each other to see (and the small gaggle of followers they somehow managed to each acquire). Though there was that time when Chat had accidentally gotten caught up in a fight about whether or not was some seven year old photo of a Gabriel model photoshopped or not. That was pretty funny.

She wished she could see him more often in person. They really hit it off and it was kind of annoying not being able to meet up just because they had to keep their identities, but they both signed contracts with the Bonheur’s recording company way back in June and a non-disclosure agreement too. Well, the Destination picks should be announced soon and then, well. They’re probably not gonna get picked out of all the entries and they’ll be free to pursue their friendship just like normal people do. With their actual social media and slightly more often meetings, where they don’t have to wear masks.

She finished her seam and clipped away the threads. Suddenly her podcast stopped and the phone lit up with an incoming call.

“Hey, Tikki, what’s up.”

“Marinette! Hi, Plagg just got the news and oh my, Marinette! We got picked! Our song! We’re gonna perform at Destination!”

She squealed into the phone, not noticing Marinette’s silence.

“I still can’t believe it, I’m so happy. Plagg is calling Chat now? We’re going to have to schedule a meeting to put everything together, we only have until the end of the month, but the two of you are already perfect, so it’s mostly just all the business-y stuff, and dealing with the television people and styling for the act. Plagg will also have to give you some updated contracts to sign, but that doesn’t matter. We should all meet up to celebrate! Right? ... Marinette?”

She blinked a few times to get out of her daze.

“Yes, right. I’m here. That’s great, Tikki, we should really do that.”

They chatted for a while before saying goodbye. Somehow over the months she sort of forgot to think about the possibility that yes, they can actually be picked, and now it was overwhelming her. She was going to sing live in a nationally broadcasted television, just a flimsy mask between her and the audience.

 _Oh my, what did I get myself into_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Destination? Eurovision! ... Hopefully
> 
> EBU stands for European Broadcasting Union and they're in charge of ESC. The language rule used to be a thing from 1966 to 1972 and 1977 to 1998 and while I know that it's not gonna change anything for this fic (This is France we're talking about, they practically always do French.) I wanted to do it, because I thought it would be fun for irl esc to try it out again. Otherwise I hope things are clear. If not or you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask! Here in comments, or I can be found under the same name on tumblr. Hope you liked it!  
>   
> Anyway, the song! First of all, I don’t know absolutely anything about music, singing, composing or song writing (I ain’t too good at poetry either). I did some research and did my best, but because I got stuck in the idea that I absolutely have to make a song for this fic, we’re gonna be stuck with what I created. It’s not finished btw, so it still may change. And even after it is, it’s still gonna act as a sort of a place holder for a better, cooler, in-universe-only existing song. I will probably make a whole post about the song and link it when I’ll finish it.  
> Other things about the song - It is? an uptempo ballad ?? I guess ?? Or at least it looks like that rather than a pop song, which it's supposed to be. It wasn’t my intention, but like, I needed the lyrics to not look stupid (and let’s face it, many a great bop has absolutely stupid looking lyrics when you write them out), so I tried to have them look somewhat competent - Cheesy McCheeseface, unoriginal and bland? Yeah, probably. But not one sentence repeated to infinity (which is nothing to say against songs that do have one sentence lyrics, they can work well as an actual song, they just look stupid on paper).  
> As previously stated, I can’t do music. But I did/am gonna slap together parts of existing songs to create an ungodly mess to work as a melody line for this, so I can be sure it does in fact fit under the three minute ESC rules. I might end up posting that too, so you can imagine the song better, so let me know if it’s something you’d be interested in. For now, the intro and parts of the chorus are stolen from the Ladybug PV song (because what I am if not on brand).


	4. Destination? Eurovision! Hopefully...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Destination is upon us and there's SO MUCH to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I’m back from my grandma, where I didn’t take my laptop, so I couldn’t write. Therefore I did pretty much the whole research and almost all of the writing since I got home on Monday, as I wanted to post at least this one chapter - I have very important exams at the beginning of September and I’ll have to focus on that.
> 
> Also, trying to do Destination in one chapter ended up not being a good idea planning wise - the chapter just wouldn’t end and nor would the research for it. So enjoy this extra long chapter!

So many things changed in Adrien’s life the night Plagg called him about their participation in Destination Eurovision. First, all the artists that made it to the final round were announced. Well, final round. The years before there have been two semifinals where the best four continued into the final, where the representing act was picked, but this year things were changed up a bit. There was only one event, where all the picked participants were to perform and the winner was picked outright.

Him and Ladybug released their twitter handles, so the potential fans could seek them out, since they didn’t have any real names to search for. With all the excitement with the preparations, their accounts were slowly getting filled with notifications of fans tagging them into their tweets. They tried to reply and tweet about things, to help the hype build, but as they both had secret identities to hide it wasn’t really easy. Which is what today was for - or one of the things today was for. It wasn’t even the most important thing, either.

Nathanaël Kurtzberg, the art director contracted under Plagg’s recording company, had requested they undergo a ‘makeover’ or sorts. A transformation that’s practically a very early hair and makeup test for the live show, where the hair and makeup artists were to alter their appearances enough to make their faces hard to recognize as their ‘civilian’ ones, and which were to become their ‘official looks’ for the competition. After all, their costume masks were not magic and face recognition programs existed – if anyone was going to try unravel their secret, they could fairly easily do so. Even now, the only thing between all of the people getting involved in this and their secret were signed nondisclosure agreements and the people themselves not wanting to ruin such an important part of the project.

And after the transformation, he’ll get to spend the whole day with Ladybug for a photoshoot around multiple Paris locations with several clothing changes for all the needed promotional stuff. The Destination people will also be releasing approximately one minute snippets of all of the songs by the end of the week and they didn’t want to use the temporary cover picture their song was sent in with. Which made sense, as the temporary cover was just an artsy photo of two domino masks - since Plagg didn’t want to waste people’s time and money before knowing they’ll actually need a cover with the two singers in it. So they had to make one now. And him and Ladybug also had the side goal to take enough photos to last their twitter needs for a while. He could not wait.

Ever since the announcement he saw Ladybug pretty regularly – for the small celebration party Tikki threw in her excitement, and several other way more business related meetings, early decisions about how their Destination act will go, a wardrobe consultation and another consultation for hair and makeup. But usually they had so many things to do and had to run off right after the meetings, that they never really had the time to have, well, fun. And sure, they were still regular visitors in each others’ DMs, but even that was less frequent than before the announcement.

“Okay, that’s ... wow. This is way better than what I thought!” Adrien said, looking at a stranger’s face in the mirror, after the hair and makeup artists were done with him. They contoured his face in a way to change his features enough to change the way he looked, but kept it close enough as to not look unnatural. And sure, full face of makeup will never not look at least a bit painted on – not unless you expect people to naturally look photoshopped – so it was obvious he was wearing makeup. But it wasn’t obvious just how much make up that was. They also cut his admittedly kind of shaggy hair into a neater style, gave it a temporary platinum/silver colour and curled it into a mess of loose ringlets. And while the new cut will last him, the lighter colour and curls helped to make the styles different.

“Not that I doubted you, of course, it’s just. Damn, I wouldn’t expect this guy to be myself either. If anyone else could guess it, they deserve a medal.”

Juleka Couffaine, the head of the team just smirked at him.

“That’s what you get when you go for the best.”

The two other artists already left to a room next door to work on Ladybug, and their wardrobe coordinator, Rose Lavillant, and her assistant were just walking through the door with many bags heaped with clothes.

“We’re done with the Lady, so now it’s your turn! Aw, my sweet, you guys did such a good job with him!” she said, almost bouncing around in excitement.

Adrien couldn’t think of a time when he last saw this much energy in a woman in her thirties, but it suited her well.

“You can put the bags down here, Laura.” She waved a hand at her assistant and started rummaging through one of her own bags, until she found a smaller one.

“First things first – the eyes. The contacts arrived a bit after you left this morning, Jule, so we can try them out.”

She gave him a small box containing a pair of bright green eye contacts with a cat-like slit down their middle.

“We’ll have to make sure they don’t shift about during the photos. And if they do, or they irritate your eyes, Mr. Kurtzberg said we can just leave them. He’s not sure whether he’ll want them for the Destination act anyway.”

Thankfully the contacts seemed to work as they should, so Juleka slipped away to help with Ladybug’s transformation. Rose and her assistant then proceeded to try several types of eye masks on him, and several changes of clothes – matching items up, disregarding others for not well enough fit or colours being off. Every final look had a photo taken of it, the items written out in Laura’s notebook and the items were put together in a separate bag. One other separate bag was reserved for clothes that didn’t make it in the final cut, but could be exchanged for them if the previous picking didn’t match Ladybug’s outfit well enough.

After they were done, he was dressed in his first outfit for the day, and everything else was packed, he went out to the lobby of the recording company, where the rest of the crew hired for their photoshoot day out gathered. When the lift dinged and Ladybug stepped out, he recognized her only thanks to the polka dotted mask over her eyes.

“Oh my god,” she said as she saw him.

His mouth fell open.

She walked over to him, catching his hands in her own.

“Oh my goodness, Chat! You... Look at you!” she exclaimed.

“Look at me? Look at you! Who even _are_ you!” he exclaimed right back, as soon as he found his voice. “Are those blue highlights? And your fringe is gone! How did they hide it?”

“It’s braided in with the side braid. Where is _your_ hair? It looks so much shorter! And it’s so light! And your eyes! They did get the kitty lenses, after all. They look ... okay, kind of weird from up close, but I guess it fits the look fine. I like your mask.”

“Well, your eyes are blue! That wasn’t in the plan, was it?”

“Oh, yeah. I was worried I still looked too recognizable, even if they said it’s mostly just my nerves, and well, Juleka had a pair of these leftover from her previous job, where they didn’t end up needing them. She said that eye colour can change a lot, so I decided to go for it. Bright blue might not be my ideal choice considering... nevermind. It works well enough and it did help ease my worries, so here I am.”

She moved her arms in a little ‘tadaa’ gesture that was one of the most adorable things Adrien has ever seen anyone do. They were called away to leave right then, so he took one more long look at her.

“They fit your look very nicely. I do miss the grey though, you have beautiful eyes.” He caught himself just then and looked away, suddenly embarrassed.

“Come on, my lady,” he gave her a smile,” let’s have some well documented fun.”

He offered her an arm to hold, and she linked their arms together, smiling.

 

* * *

 

“This is unfair, how are you so good at this?” she murmured under her breath, as they were told to hold position.

Several camera snaps sounded next to them and the director called for another pose.

“Cats are naturally photogenic?” he tried, as he arranged his body to the request.

Ladybug snorted and tried to do the same. Before an assistant could come to help her again, he lightly pushed at her a few times, getting her body in a position that looked less stiff and strained, almost relaxed, even if she had to hold her herself taut to keep it.

“You’re doing great, actually. No one expects us to be professional models, that’s why we have the assistants - need for a little guidance is expected.”

“Yeah, sure.” She rolled her eyes between shots. “That’s why they only have to correct me. Tell me, Chaton, did you practise in front of a mirror?”

He laughed.

“You’ll never find out.”

The camera snaps sounded again, along with a little giggle of an assistant, with a way less fancy camera, appointed to get backstage photos for social media. She was getting so much material of the two bantering, the internet will love it.

*

Adrien took more selfies this afternoon, than he ever did before. Most of them were taken with someone at his side - people from the team, the crew, Ladybug. So many selfies with Ladybug. Smiling, laughing, pulling faces at each other. A snapshot of a frustrated makeup artist reminding them to be careful and _not touch their faces so much_. A picture of said makeup artist touching up Ladybug’s face. Shots from backstage, car rides from one location to another, the photographer’s studio, where most of the photoshoot took place, and the outside locations too. And Ladybug. So many pictures of Ladybug.

Though to be honest, she had about as many pictures of him as he had of her. Their twitters will soon be pretty busy.

*

He stood in his final outfit, a two piece suit, jacket open and a loosened tie around his neck. Fake leaning against a trimmed bush forming a wall of the Jardin des Plantes labyrinth, Ladybug was at the other side, in a similar position, holding his hand on the side of the bush.

“Great! That’s the last one here. Good work, folks,” the photographer called out.

Adrien tugged on Ladybug’s hand, to get her over to his side.

“Why hello there,” he said as she stumbled into him.

 “Stupid shoes,” she said as she righted herself. “Who thought wearing heels to a garden is a good idea, I don’t know.”

 “We still have the cover to do, right?” she turned away to call to the art director, tired from the day long photoshoot.

“That’s right. Last thing and then we can all come home.” Nathanaël Kurtzberg nodded, checking with his files, running a hand through his receding hair. “Can I get that bench over here?”

As the crew members put together the needed set, a hair stylist went to let Ladybug’s hair out of the loose updo it was in for the last photos and an assistant fussed with Adrien’s clothes.

“Nevermind,” he said, after trying to straighten his collar and failing. “I’d have to iron that out, what did you even do with the shirt? It won’t really be visible anyway.”

Adrien and Ladybug were set down on the bench, two light reflectors aimed at them at an uncomfortably close distance, two assistants holding a piece of a green screen fabric behind them. They could have shot it in the studio, but the photographer wanted to use the golden hour light, which is why he decided for shooting it outside, and why they left it for the very end of the photoshoot.

“It’s gonna be a close up, so squish together. No, more than that. Great. Now, put finger over your lips, Ladybug, your right hand, Chat Noir, your left. We just need your faces and the hands, so put your faces closer together, so you fit in the shot. And smile a little into it, you have a secret and you won’t tell it.”

 

* * *

 

After the song snippets were released, Adrien listened to all of them and had to say, the competition will be tough. All of the nine other songs seemed solid and since their release Adrien couldn’t help himself but seek out what people thought. To the excitement of their team, their song was one of the favourites. Though they were also one of the first ones to release the full version on social media, so maybe their song just had more time to gather a fanbase.

Destination people also sent over a time plan and requests for filming their interviews and introductions and a timetable of the event. Him and Ladybug were to sing in the latter half of the evening, which was fine with everyone. Ladybug especially didn’t want to go first - though she did mention that she’d rather be in the first half, so she can have the performance behind her sooner.

They also reminded them of the requirement to sing a cover of a song of their choice, and that there’ll be two songs sung by all of the contestants together - Refrain by Lys Assia, the very first song to win Eurovision, at the start of the show, and a medley of France’s past wins at the end, before voting starts. The organizers were citing inspiration by the 2020 Eurovision slogan - best of the past - which in Adrien’s opinion was very obvious.

Him and Ladybug got a part of the 1969 Un jour, un enfant, but they wouldn’t mind any of the other songs. France won five times - in 1958, three times in the sixties and the latest win was in 1977 - and it was known for always sending in chansons back then for a reason. And they were all very nice, so it didn’t matter anyway.

“So, are you both free on the 20th?” asked Plagg.

All three of them were sitting in Plagg’s office at the record company, putting together a schedule for their next meetings. Ladybug nodded in agreement, checking with the planner in her lap, and Adrien scratched the back of his neck.

“I’ll have to move some things around at school, but I’ll be able to clear the afternoon. They said they’ll come for the interviews at one, right?”

“Yep. We’ll need you here earlier though, to clear up some of the details and for the whole get-up.” Plagg waved at the both of them.

Adrien winced and drew a dart in his planner to indicate the earlier hour.

“I’ll do what I can. And if I’m late, they can start with interviewing you guys and Tikki or taking the super close up footage they’re so fond of.”

“May I ask what ‘school’ means or does it fall under secret identity? I thought you said you’re working?” asked Ladybug.

They shared some of their personal lives, mostly though texting, so they knew some things about each other, but kept it vague for secrecy. Plagg and Tikki let them share what they wanted, but cautioned them to be careful and not to go looking for each other’s identities. Surprisingly, Ladybug was the one pulling the I’m-not-telling card more often than Adrien, even though he was pretty sure he was the one way easier to find.

“Oh, I’m... I’m doing a doctorate.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“You are? Wouldn’t guess you were the academic type.”

“Guess I’m full of surprises then.” He shrugged.

Sometimes he felt like people thought he was bragging when he talked about his continued studies, but she seemed genuinely interested. And thanks to the freedom his anonymity has given him in their nonconventional relationship he was able to act goofier than he could otherwise - Nino often teased him for hiding under the model son/student/persona whenever he got stuck unprepared in a social situation. So he really didn’t blame her for being surprised.

And he really only smeared it in one peoples face when they thought him a dumb pretty face, or whenever he came in contact with his father, who predicted he’ll lose interest in astrophysics after a semester or two and will ‘come to his senses’ and switch to a business degree instead.

 “Yeah, a whole real jack in the box, you are,” said Plagg, shuffling the papers on his office table, looking for his planner to pen the meeting in.

“We’ll also need to get you here with Sabrina for the songs, as soon as possible, and you’ll need to pick something to cover. I don’t care what it is, but try to pick something decent - you’re representing my company now and I’d love to avoid the public embarrassment of letting you sing something by XY.”

Ladybug visibly recoiled at that.

“Not happening. Ever.” She shuddered.

“Agreed.”

“Great. So you’re both still free this Tuesday, right?”

They nodded as Plagg pencilled the meeting in his calendar. “So that’s for the vocal coaching and we’ll get you a meeting for the stage choreography too - Nathaniël finalized the plan for the act, so he’ll go over it with you.”

“Wait, choreography? You want us to dance?” asked Ladybug.

“I don’t, Nathaniël does. Or well, he’ll see how the two of you are doing movement-wise, but even if you’re total logs on the dance floor and can’t handle the Macarena, we still need to do some movement choreography, so you don’t end up awkwardly shuffling from foot to foot on stage like a pair of schoolkids in a Christmas play.”

“Oh, okay.”

She calmed at that, but he still reached over to squeeze her hand. She gave him a grateful smile. The preparations were balling up more and more and they were slowly succumbing to the stress of it all.

“Also, you’ll be asked about a gazzilion times over about why you want to do this, what would winning Eurovision mean to you and why should it be you people vote for, so be prepared for that and come up with something. And put together something about your life story that’s vague enough for the interview, trust me, you can’t really bullshit though it on spot.”

 

* * *

 

“Sorry I’m late, I couldn’t get away earlier,” said Adrien as we finally walked into the recording room, where Plagg and Tikki, Ladybug, and Mireille Caquet were already seated, with a small filming crew from France 2 and their manager.

He ran half the way to the recording company, but wasn’t at all out of breath as he spent quite some time getting his Chat Noir face done in the room next to this one. He also got his clothes straightened up, was ran over by a lint roller, and was updated by an assistant about what he missed so far.

Mireille and Tikki had their part of the interview done - about their song and its creation, Plagg also already said all his solo parts, and now the crew was filming group interview with all of them, after which it would be time just for him and Ladybug.

As the film crew was already notified about his arrival, they could easily catch him coming in on film and greeting everyone cordially with gestures of friendship and happiness. They were told to play it up a bit, as they needed quite a lot of shots of them interacting to put together a background for when the interviews went into voice over. Not that he was faking his enthusiasm, he was really getting close to everyone in the team, even the very shy composer he only saw rarely.

“Hello, my lady,” he murmured into Ladybugs ear as he hugged her in greeting.

“Hi, kitty,” she greeted in return.

He couldn’t remember when they came up with their nicknames, but they definitely stuck around.

“Good, now that you’re here, I’m Jean Custeau, from France 2,” the manager introduced himself.

“Nice to meet you, sorry for being late.” Adrien shook his hand and then seated himself in the chair left for him.

“It’s fine, we‘re well on with the schedule, we just switched things around a bit. I’ll be asking you questions and we’ll put together your introduction video from your answers.”

Adrien nodded, even though the assistant before already explained things to him.

“So, tell me a bit more about your Eurovision song, Miss Ladybug was about to explain your act concept.”

“Right, so, our stage act has a bit of a story behind it,” Ladybug started. “We play two characters, who just met at an event. It’s a masquerade ball of some kind, and we never saw each other before. Sorry, the ball really isn’t that important, it’s just the reason for the fancy dress. So! We play two characters who just met at this event and taken a liking to each other, but because we’re complete strangers, we’re afraid to show our real hearts and be vulnerable. _Our_ masks are metaphorical - we wear them to show that, rather than because it’s a masquerade.”

“It plays into the themes of the song itself,” Adrien continued. “It tells a story about a new love where the two are fighting against their insecurities, afraid to open up, because they’re scared of getting hurt. But as their relationship progresses they find the strength to put trust in each other and lean on each other for support. It’s how the anonymous thing started.”

Tikki smiled at the camera. “It was my idea. To support the themes of the song, I thought, why not have it sung by two people literally hiding behind masks - it just seemed poetic to me. And Ladybug and Chat Noir are great people, we’re lucky to have found them, they went along with my idea, so now we get to have this fun mystery. And honestly, a lot of the times I think that back when we were first writing the song, I was really writing it for the two of them, I just didn’t know it yet. It just fits them so well, I couldn’t imagine we went into the whole Eurovision adventure with anyone else.”

“That’s right. The anonymous aspect has really captured people’s attention. Do you really not know who each other is?”

“No,” Ladybug and Adrien answered simultaneously.

They looked at each other and laughed. Adrien made a gesture for Ladybug to start.

“We don’t know who the other is, no. I mean, we’re doing this to show the inner mindset of our roles, so it wouldn’t work if we were just pretending.”

“It’d feel like lying, yes.” Adrien agreed.

They talked a bit longer, after that they said goodbye to Tikki, Plagg and Mireille and moved to the lobby, to film another part of the interview in a different setting. They were asked to talk about their connection to music, their dreams, their relationship, what are their expectations for Eurovision, why should they be the ones who win. Which song did they chose to cover and why.

“Okay, last thing before we move to filming the background scenes - your producer said you wanted to go outside for that, to the park, right?” Jean Custeau asked.

“The park and we have permission from the Café à la Fenêtre to film in their backyard seating,” Adrien said.

“Great. We just need you to introduce your song then.”

Ladybug sat up straighter next to him and they both prepared themselves. Jean Custeau called for action.

“My name is Ladybug.”

“And I’m Chat Noir.”

“We are Les Miraculeux and we’re going to sing ‘The Masks We Hide Behind’.”

 

* * *

 

“Breathe. We’re going to do great. We went through the rehearsal, killed the dress rehearsal and we’re going to ace this now.”

It was D day, or better yet, DE day. Adrien was holding Ladybug’s hands in the green room, both of them in stage make up and costumes, waiting to be called on stage. The show has started about forty minutes ago, with the famous Eurovision opening music. After that, all the performers were sent on stage to set the evening off, each singing their assigned part of the 1956 winner, coming together for the chorus. Garou, returning to host the show for the third year, went up on stage to present the event and then it was time for each of the artists to perform their songs.

Four singers were already done with their pieces - Gerbilsica went first, a lovely couple in their early thirties with a very energetic jazzy number, and the only other duo in the competition. After them went Raphael Chaucer with a slow ballad, entirely too reminiscent of last year’s frienzone-ballad-apocalypse, but aside from the text the artist wrote himself, it was a good quality song. Rania Corriveau went after him, with her indie pop song in Arabic, first of the non-French acts in the competition. She was dressed in a beautiful costume reflecting her Algerian ancestry, and Ladybug has spent quite a lot of the dress rehearsal excitingly chatting to her about the intricate embroideries.

It was great to see her so interested, especially since it helped her calm her nerves a lot. Adrien himself was drawing onto his youth spent in front of cameras, on photoshoots and fashion shows both, to keep his own nerves down, so he could support his partner through this. He wasn’t kidding when he said they killed the dress rehearsal - which was great, because a recording of that was sent off to the fifteen international juries supplying half the points this evening - so he knew they could do it again. Ladybug was not as sure.

Elouan Trévidic just stepped into the green room, after finishing her performance of a modern folk song in Breton and immediately went to help herself to a glass of water. They all briefly clamoured to her to congratulate her on a job greatly done, just like they’ve done with the other performers before. They had a big TV in the greenroom so they could watch the show life with the rest of the nation.

An assistant went in to get Lǐ Wéi, the youngest contestant at mere 17 years, to get ready for stage, as Samuel Compere, the oldest one at 48, just finished his cover on stage and a second part of the introduction video was playing before he could perform his classical chanson. Lǐ grabbed his guitar and everyone wished him luck for his lovely radio friendly pop song.

Ladybug sighed and went in to rest her head on his shoulder before flinching and moving away, reminding herself not to smudge her make up on his suit jacket.

“I know we did well,” she said. “It’s just... I’ve never done something this big and the nerves are getting to me. But like, look at Lǐ - he looked totally fine just now and he’s so small.”

“He’s a brave boy. Or really good at hiding his emotions. Everyone deals with this in a different way, it’s okay to be nervous. But I know you and I know how hard you worked on this. I was with you every step of the way, and I’m not leaving your side. We’ll blow everyone’s socks off.”

Ladybug chuckled at that.

“Everyone here is great, if we’re going to blow people’s socks off, it’s gonna be the eight pair they had blown off today.”

Adrien grinned at her.

“True.”

Adélaïde was called to get ready for the stage. Her song was a very happy go lucky upbeat song with a message for people to stand together, which reflected her sunny personality perfectly. She sung in her native Creole too and the song had a significant Martinican influence.

“Last one before us,” Adrien said.

They were the eighth; the only ones after them were Antone Beaux, with his chatty playful song in Corsican with an extremely catchy melody and Nadine Takala with her power ballad focusing on her childhood as a child of Cameroonian immigrants in Paris. Power ballads are such a Eurovision staple, but hers was made even more powerful through the sheer force of the singer’s alto. At last, they would all return on stage to sing the past French winners medley and the voting would begin.

It wasn’t long before they too were called to get ready in the backstage. Everyone wished them luck, and they thanked them, before following an assistant through the backstage to the podium, where the three famous singers in the expert panel were giving Adélaïde their critiques.

“Remember, as soon as she’s done, Garou is going to introduce you two, after which the first video is played, that’s about a minute forty. We’ll send you up during that and then you’re set to sing your cover. Garou asks you something about why you chose this song, than the other video plays, you do your act, get critiques and someone is gonna lead you back to the greenroom. Understood?”¨

They both nodded. Their voices from the first video could be heard echoing in the studio where the filming was taking place, which was admittedly kind of weird. But it also helped the feeling that this is really happening settle down in Adrien’s bones. Their moment was upon them and there was nothing else they could do about it.

“Great, you have ten seconds, then it’s go.”

He turned to face Ladybug and squeezed her hands again. They both took a deep breath.

“We’re gonna ace this,” said Ladybug, and he was so glad to see the conviction burning in her eyes.

“That we are.”

“Okay, three, two, one - GO.” the assistant counted down.

 

* * *

 

Adrien was breathing hard and so was Ladybug beside him. Their act was fairly simple - for them at least. They had two couples dancing behind them, to give the atmosphere of the supposed masquerade ball. Him and Ladybug only joined the dance shortly, during the instrumental break, but the whole performance had tired them out anyway.

The audience was cheering, waving their small flags, French or otherwise. Garou was saying something, but he didn’t really understand what. The three celebrities appointed as the expert panel started giving them out critiques - complimenting this, correcting that, but overall they were very positive.

“You don’t just need the vocals, which you have in the bag anyway, but you need the stage presence and charisma to capture the audience, especially in a competition such as Eurovision and I think you definitely got that. Your song has a lovely story and a profound text for something that’s quite upbeat and you sell it beautifully,” Christophe Willem, the last of the panel members, said. “Also, as a duo, you need to have a certain relationship, you need to click together for your voices to carry this song. You need to trust your partner to pull off their parts and you have to work together to create the beautiful harmonies when the both of you are singing. And you two have so much chemistry, this relationship just shines through when you sing. It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you, thank you so much.”

“Those were very encouraging words from Christophe,” Garou took over the conversation again. “And I can’t help but agree. So, you were one of the favourites among the fans since the beginning but tell me, why do _you_ want to bear the French flag in Eurovision?”

 

* * *

 

The tension in the room could be cut through with a knife. The last of the international juries has awarded their 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 points to their favourite acts and now the other half of the points - from the public votes - were distributed.

Ladybug was crushing his hands, as they stood huddled together around a curved table with their name presented on a tablet with all the other contestants, several cameras pointing at their faces.

Emotions were all over the place. Elation at every awarded twelve points, disappointment, lost hopes and dreams of those at the lowest places knowing the public vote can be very fickle. The competition was fairly close as the juries distributed their points, there wasn’t anyone close to being a clear winner. An act that got a twelve point from one jury could get none from another, as all of them were saying, how hard it was to decide, which act they’ll give their favours.

Garou announced the points from public votes from the least to the highest amount. Adrien still couldn’t really believe him and Ladybug were in the last three to be announced. Last two, as 87 points were awarded to Samuel, putting him at temporary first place.

“The last two remain. Who will represent France at the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest? The last two to receive their points are Adélaïde and Les Miraculeux, who are currently right above each other with respective 85 and 92 points.”

The voice of the presenter cut through the room and Ladybug and Adrien leaned over to where Adélaïde was standing at her given spot, and squeezed her hands in support, the cameras were now pointed at the two of them and her to get their reactions as Garou extended the silence in anticipation.

“Les Miraculeux have been given ... 115 points! Which currently moves them into the lead, but will it be enough for them to win?”

Ladybug hugged him tight, worries of smearing foundation on his clothes long forgotten.

“I can’t believe it,” she murmured.

“Yeah,” he said, just as quietly and squeezed her in his arms.

“And the last of the public votes ... go to Adélaïde ... with 120 points!”

The studio erupted into cheers as the table on the screen behind Garou added the public votes to Adélaïde’s jury points and moved her name up. Up to the second position, two points below Les Miraculeux.

Adrien stood unblinking. They won. _Oh my goodness they won!_

The hug for support has easily turned into a celebration as Adrien swept Ladybug off her feet and twirled her around.

“We won!”

Her eyes were wet with tears, as their competitors swamped around them to congratulate them. Several of the filming crew were now moving them towards the stage, through a different route than before, so they had to force their way there though the audience in the studio, all reaching out to them. They tried to clasp all the hands they could, around the backs of the security guards who were making way through the crowd for them.

Finally up on the stage, Garou hugged them both, congratulating them as confetti flew through the air. They took microphones from a stage assistant and prepared themselves to sing a repeat of their winning song.

They gave each other impossibly wide grins as the first notes sounded and sang the first lines facing each other, before turning to the audience, who sang along with every word.

They held hands throughout the whole song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (OMG guys, how could the destination results POSSIBLY end up? In the fourth chapter out of twelve of this eurovision au fic. It’s a MYSTERY! Much cliffhanger very suspension.)  
> (omg they won, can you BELIEVE?)
> 
> Up next: The Best Laid Plans
> 
> I skipped a lot of the Destination prep and only focused on only some of the event, because we’ll get pretty much the same with esc and I’ll be able to do it properly then. Also, if anything wasn’t clear enough, don’t hesitate to ask!  
> I could only get my hands on the 2018 semi-finals (French only) and a few short videos (plus news articles) in English for DE 2019. Considering my French is not that good, I only had the basic idea of what people were talking about and since I don’t know much about music (again), I mostly pulled the interviews and critiques and anything the commentator says out of a hat and hoped for the best.
> 
> Please let me know what you think of the transformations! I needed to do something to hide their identity since I don’t have the handy ‚it’s magic‘ excuse, and this is what I could do, while still being reversible enough people don’t put together Adrien and Marinette’s changes with Les Miraculeux stage looks.  
> Also, I tried to make it a bit more obvious that just because I’m using cannon characters in place of minor roles, it doesn’t mean all the classmates are still classmates or even the same age. So unless it’s stated people are friends/went to school together etc. just take them as random people.


	5. The Best Laid Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Decisions, decisions, all of them ... ridiculous?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to the lovely Taylara, for all her help when I was first putting this thing together. A lot of what we discussed was the act, which is decided in this chapter, plus her extensive knowledge of all things Eurovision was vital in helping me out with research. Thank you so very much for your help and enthusiasm for this story!! <3 
> 
> Also, if any of you are not familiar with the 2016 interval act Love Love Peace Peace, I strongly suggest you check it out, because it’s awesome. This and the other referenced songs are all linked in the text.

CN:     HOW could you say that? This sweater is the most perfect article of clothing I’ve ever seen. I’m getting it and I won’t take it off the whole Christmas

LB:     this sweater hurts my eyes. the colour palette is horrendous, the pattern is *way* too busy and too small to work on this scale, you’re losing details in a way that makes it unreadable. This isn’t an Ugly Christmas Sweater, it’s just plain bad

LB:      now, if you had ANY sense of style whatsoever, you’d clearly pick this one

LB:      image4521sd5h.jpg

CN:     Oh ... my god.

CN:     where in the world did you unearth this from??

CN:     I just.. I can’t. Does it legit light up??

LB:      it sure does! AND the colours work together AND the pattern is clear, so even if it makes my eyes bleed with how ugly it is, it’s ugly with _style_

 

Marinette giggled at her phone screen and looked up to see if Alya was coming back from her break in the bistro’s bathroom.  She couldn’t see her friend yet, so she turned her attention back to her phone.

She loved her conversations with Chat, not only because he was a great friend, but it also helped to distract her from her hectic days after winning Destination. If she thought her life turned into a circus in preparation for the national selection contest, it had nothing on what happened after. There were interviews, meetings, press conferences, public appearances and more. And today, after she parts her way with Alya, she’ll have the first meeting with France’s Head of Delegation, which she was more than nervous about. Thankfully, Tikki said the attention will fall away after a while, so she’ll get respite soon. Well, until all of the Eurovision build up starts with all the preparations and preparties and promoting and...

Marinette didn’t know what she would do, if her partner wasn’t steadfastly at her side and if she didn’t get all the support she could want from him and the rest of their team.

She scrolled up to their conversation from a late night few days ago.

They were both tired from the days’ events, but didn’t want to say goodbye just yet.  After some deliberation, she decided to ask him about something that was bothering her for a while. She knew it shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help but feel jealous of how easily Chat seemed to deal with all the media attention.

 

CN:     I ... I’ll say something that’s going to be kind of close to my identity, so stop me if you think I’m saying too much and please don’t go digging around after what I’ll tell you

 

The time stamp on the following message was quite a bit later, as he took his time to put what he wanted to say in words.

 

CN:     Remember how I said I’m kind of known? Like, even when I worked with Nino on the Inspector Jones soundtrack, I kept my name out of that?

CN:     My parents are, let’s say recognizable, where I grew up. Like, known names of high society sort of recognizable. They tried to shield me from most of the media attention when I was a kid, but it still was something I had to deal with pretty much my whole life. Keep myself in check, always watching what I say so it can’t be misinterpreted, how to handle public appearances, how to deal with press prying in my private life. And I also, uh, entered the public scene (like kind of? in this one field?) when I was a teenager on my father’s insistence, which is when the media really went after me

LB:      really? that sounds ... unenviable

CN:     Yeah. It seems to you I have no problems handling the attention, but I can only do that because it was drilled into me from a young age how to do it and I had my whole life to get used to it. Even after the last years as I try to lay low it’s still ingrained in me. And really, you’re doing great for someone who’s just been thrust into it without much preparation. I mean, the PR team Plagg has in the company does a good job too and you’re amazing at following their advice. You learn really fast and honestly, if I wasn’t there with you off camera, I never would have guessed you’re so nervous. When you’re in the spotlight you seem to ooze confidence

LB:      lol, flatterer

LB:      but really, thank you. it means a lot to hear this. I keep worrying about messing up somehow and ruining this

LB:      and having you with me is helping a lot too, so thank you

CN:     Don’t mention it, my lady. I’m not leaving you in this alone, you can count on me

 

Marinette blushed as she reread the words. He just had a way with words that sometimes she couldn’t help but feel her heart stutter. Other times, she was stunned into disbelief of how much of a dork he could be.

Marinette looked up just in time to see Alya coming back from the bathroom. Hastily she said goodbye to Chat and exited the conversation, putting her phone away. Unfortunately she wasn’t quick enough and therefore was not spared the smirk on her best friend’s face.

“Giggling at your phone again, Nette?” she teased as she sat down at their table. “Tsk, tsk, one would think you’re trying to hide a secret boyfriend from me. And failing.”

Marinette groaned in good nature, hoping the light blush colouring her cheeks wasn’t too visible. But it’s been over a week since Destination and Marinette was grasping at straws of normality of her life and Alya teasing her about her love life did the trick.

Also, while Alya was technically wrong - she wasn’t hiding a secret boyfriend, and no matter her treacherous heart, she refused to even think of liking Chat as long as this whole Eurovision shtick was upon them, she just couldn’t afford to get distracted when she was already overwhelmed and too over her head with everything going on - she wasn’t exactly not-right either. Marinette didn’t think she had a crush on her partner, no. They had an easy friendship steadily becoming closer and had a strong partnership, but that was it. Even if she could see herself falling for him, were their situation different. The soft looks and sweet words and casual affection he liked to give her didn’t exactly help her resolve though, even if she couldn’t be totally sure if he meant his flirty quips or not.

“Oh come on, you know I’m just teasing,” Alya said, finishing the last of the water provided with her coffee. “Besides, it’s good to see you in a good mood. You seem insanely busy lately and not just because of the impending holidays - is everything okay with the theatre?”

“Yeah, the theatre is fine. It’s just a busy time, is all. Besides, I’m not the only one hard to get a hold of, mademoiselle Public Relations Manager for FranceTV after just five months of working there.”

“Aw shucks, you,” Alya said and blushed. “I wasn’t really promoted, Mrs. Lamare just asked for me to fill her position till she’s back from maternal leave -and that’s just the 16 weeks as her husband is taking the paid parental leave.”

“Still!” Marinette drank the last of her hot ... well more like lukewarm chocolate. “She asked for you specifically. This is amazing, Alya!”

“I know, I know. But,” Alya sighed. “I mean I like the job okay, and I _am_ making a bunch of contacts thanks to it, which is great and will be so useful when I’ll get a job in journalism. But I still can’t help but feel like I’m at the wrong side of the microphone. I should be asking the questions and writing reports, not scheduling interviews for someone else while I spend my time polishing press releases.”

Marinette reached across the table and caught Alya’s hand in her.

“I know. But like you said, you are making a lot of contacts and you even if it’s ‘on the wrong side of the microphone’, you _are_ involved in press. And hey, it will give you a great perspective when you _do_ work as a reporter and have to decode the press releases for the juicy info they try to cover up, you’ll know all of the tricks.”

Alya laughed a little, and Marinette smiled at her, glad to have helped her cheer up.

They sat in silence for a little while, before Alya suddenly made a sound as she remembered something.

“Have I ever told you Mrs. Lamare was a part of the Eurovision delegation?” she asked.

Marinette startled in surprise.

“Really? I thought an outside company is hired for that?”

 “Yeah, the Head of Press is, and they bring in the rest of their team too, but FranceTV also likes to have one of their own people there,” Alya explained. “And since Mrs. Lamare won’t be able to start now, and switching in the middle of all the preparations wouldn’t be ideal, I get to keep the position there.”

Marinette felt her mouth fall open, so she quickly shut it.

“You’ll be a part of the delegation?” she asked, to be sure.

Alya nodded.

“It’s a great opportunity to make so many contacts. And to see the inner workings and such, I’m really excited about it. It may not be my dream job, but at least it will be fun.”

“Yeah, that’s,” Marinette said more quietly than she’d like before catching herself. “That’s amazing! So, will you be involved with the core team, the performers, or just overview things from the outskirts?”

“Oh no, I’ll be super involved! The thing I said I have after this? It’s a meeting with the Les Miraculeux team and the Head of Delegation and FranceTV executives and, my god, Marinette. I’m so excited and nervous about it at the same time.”

“Yeah, I can understand that.” Marinette looked down at the table and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You were a fan of Les Miraculeux in Destination, right?”

Alya nodded eagerly. “I can’t wait to meet them! I already had to sign the non-disclosure agreement about their identities, when it was finalized that I’d be the one to work in the delegation - do you think I’ll get to know who they are? Or is it just in case I ever found out by accident? They did say the identities are mostly on a need-to-know basis.”

Marinette hid a slight wince. “I’m not sure, guess you’ll have to wait and see. But shouldn’t you already go? You said the meeting is at two, right?”

Alya looked at her wristwatch and cursed. They quickly packed up, put their coats on and left the bistro.

“I’ll go with you,” Marinette said. “The studio is on my way.”

“Didn’t you say you had something important this afternoon too?” Alya frowned, as they rushed to catch the RER train.

“Like I said, it’s on my way.”

After they got off the train, Alya was still trying to get out of Marinette just what did she have to do here at the edge of town, but she wasn’t budging. So Marinette simply took her hand and dragged her best friend toward the bathrooms at the train station.

She looked around to check if nobody was there, closed the door behind them and turned to Alya with a serious expression.

“What I just say, is not getting out to anyone, Alya, understand? Not my parents, not any of the delegation, no hints, nothing.”

“What the hell, Marinette? What’s this supposed to mean?”

She was obviously confused at her actions and Marinette didn’t blame her. To end her best friend’s misery, she reached into her handbag and pulled out a simple, red and black spotted masquerade mask.

Alya stared at her, her mouth hanging open.

“Please, don’t freak out,” Marinette said with a wince and tied the mask around her head.

Alya did, in fact, start to freak out though.

“You! I - Mari- Oh MY GO-”

Marinette clasped her hands over Alya’s mouth before her voice could get any louder.

“Yes, I know. This is big. I’m sorry I sprung this on you like this, but I wouldn’t be able to hide this from you since you’re a part of the delegation.”

She bit her lip.

Alya was staring at her with wide eyes, her body practically vibrating.

“I’m really sorry. I’ll ask for the second level non-disclosure for you, it’s specifically for people who know who we are - me and Chat I mean. There are a few more conditions and clauses.”

She slowly took her hands off of Alya’s face. Her best friend took a few calming breaths before attempting to speak again.

“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe YOU.” She shook her head. “This is _amazing_! Marinette! You’re Ladybug! You won the freaking Destination Eurovision? How the heck did you get in this situation?”

Marinette let out a breath in relief.

“Tikki asked me and Chat to cover the song she wanted to apply to Eurovision, to try things out with our voices and then really liked it and well... I don’t really understand it either. I agreed to try this out, she applied the song, we got picked for Destination and then we ... won it. And that’s just how my life is now. I’m participating in freaking Eurovision in less than five months.”

Alya laughed, still partly in shock.

“Girl, that’s just. This whole thing doesn’t even feel real.”

“Tell me about it. Doesn’t feel real to me either and I’m living it. We should get going though, or we’ll be late to the meeting.”

“Oh yeah, right. That.”

Marinette giggled as they left the station bathroom. They were really lucky no one needed to use it, so they could have the talk in private.

“Oh, and one more thing. Don’t tell too many people you know me in real life. The second level non-disclosure people can know, which is basically the core of our team, but if it gets out, it could be a link to my identity.”

“Right, of course. My lips are sealed.” She even mimed zipping her lips shut for good measure. “But I’m sleeping over at yours today - we need to talk about this, girl. I want to know _everything_.”

“Yeah, I thought you might.”

 

* * *

 

It was early January and Marinette sat in her mask next to Chat Noir on a comfy love seat in one of the many meeting rooms in FranceTV studios. The room was full - Plagg and Tikki were already there, as was Alya, Mireille Caquet and Nathanaël Kurtzberg. Blanche d’Aramitz, their Head of Press and Marc Anciel, creative director at France TV were also there, both of whom Marinette met at the meeting back in December. Everyone was sitting on an assortment of chairs, armchairs and a sofa arranged around a low conference table filled with a tray of refreshments, glasses and a water jug and some paperwork. The only person missing was Pierre St. James, Head of Delegation, and he was already several minutes late.

The meeting was about their Eurovision act. They had to make decisions on what exactly they wanted to do and at best also throw in some ideas for the official music video, so everything else could be decided and put in motion.

Suddenly, the doors flew open and in marched not Pierre St. James, but a beautiful woman whose presence commandeered attention.

“Good afternoon. My name is Chloé Bourgeois and I’m Assistant Head to Mr. St. James, who just informed me not five minutes ago, that he won’t be able to attend this meeting.” She looked very displeased with her superior. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I assure you I already worked as Assistant Head the last two years and have all the information needed, so I’m fully capable of filling in for him. You’re in good hands. So for this meeting I-”

Her eyes, sweeping over the room half stunned to silence at her entrance, brushed across Chat Noir and her entire posture changed.

“Are you shitting me,” she said, her voice a complete deadpan.

Marinette looked at her partner, who in turn looked like he was trying really hard not to smirk.

“Hi, Chlo.”

His voice did a little teasing lilt at the nickname.

“I hate you. You are the worst. I can’t _belie_ \- ugh honestly? This is SO something you’d totally be into doing.”

He just laughed.

“I can’t believe you were able to keep a straight face when we talked last time. ‘Oh you’re going to be Assistant Head again, Chlo, that’s great, so how did you like the Destination winners?’ Utterly. Ridiculous.”

“Oh definitely. I especially liked the part when you complained about our anonymous concept for, like, half an hour, good to know you’re so enthusiastic.”

“Oh shut up, you,” she said, suppressing her own smile.

“So, I take it you two know each other?” Marinette spoke up.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Chat said.

“Right.” Chloé took a calming breath. “Anyway. Does everyone here have the second level non disclosure? Yes? Great. Please, if you don't already know, don’t go digging after my friends to keep the name under that ridiculous cat mask uncovered.”

She waved a finger disdainfully at Chat.

Plagg chuckled from his seat and stood up to shake her hand and introduce anyone from his studio Chloé might not be acquainted with yet.

Alya leaned over on her chair towards Marinette.

“I’m so glad you told me beforehand, girl,” she whispered.

“Yeah, I wanted to keep the drama out of this. But someone-” she knocked her shoulder against Chat, “apparently had different ideas.”

“What?” He whispered out of the corner of his mouth, leaning closer. “Her face was _so_ worth it.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Chloé interrupted them, rolling her eyes at Chat, but putting on a pleasant smile as she turned to Marinette and Alya.

“Chloé Bourgeois, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Ladybug.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Marinette said and clasped her hand as they did la bise.

After Chloé greeted Alya, she seated herself into the last free seat and spoke up again, this time addressing the whole room.

“As I was saying earlier, welcome at this meeting. Today we’re supposed to iron out the Final act. Your studio,” she nodded at Plagg, “did a good job for the Destination. You were the one responsible for it, Mr. Kurtzberg, right? But as _somebody_ already helpfully pointed out, I, personally, am a bit, let’s say hesitant, about your anonymity concept. It frankly feels a bit ridiculous. But that’s it. It does feel like that to me, and Mr. St. James agreed, because it doesn’t have a strong enough base to build on, it’s a fitting and meaningful metaphor in theory, a good idea to incorporate, but if we just leave it as it is, the execution could fail to reflect that and it could end up feeling more like a gimmick.”

“So yes. I do think it’s ridiculous. But that’s what we have and we can work with it, we can own it. But in that case, we have to put more effort in the ridiculous - I mean, we can’t overdo it, that would ruin the meaning of why are we doing it in the first place - but we have to put in enough so it doesn’t look like something just slapped on to attract views. We have to make a commitment. The Destination act in and of itself was not a bad at all, but a bit bland, in my opinion. So, does anyone have any suggestions?”

“The idea behind the Destination act was a masquerade ball, right?” Blanche  d’Aramitz looked up from her diligent note taking. “We can keep that and work off of that.”

“We could, but I don’t exactly see how,” said NathanaëlKurtzberg. “I already did what I could for the Destination, there isn’t really a way to make the theme more apparent, unless you add ballroom shots on the backdrops.”

“Yes, but we also tended to rely on LED panels a lot in recent years, well more than that, really, and with this number we could do with something a little more fresh,” said Marc Anciel.

“We could also not do the masquerade theme and come up with something else, our studio isn’t fixed on that,” said Plagg.

“Sure,” agreed Chloé.

“But what else do you want to do with masked people aside from a masquerade?” argued Kurtzberg. “I did my best with the given constrictions.”

“No one is saying you didn’t, Mr. Kurtzberg,” said Chloé. “Your staging was good, it’s just that the masquerade is great as an act theme, but it doesn’t sell them keeping themselves anonymous off the stage too. In Destination you had two introductory videos where those two could explain the masks, but for Eurovision we only get one forty second postcard clip with no talking. People are going to be confused when they see them still wearing the masks in the postcard too. And we have to remember, majority of the viewers will be people who only watch the events - on the whole scale, only a small percentage of viewers keeps up with Eurovision news throughout the year or searches out information on their own. We can’t rely on people already knowing what’s up. And sure, we can write out the whole concept on our page for the Eurovision app, but again, not everyone will look us up. And I don’t want to lose potential voters on something so simple as being confused.”

Chloé threw out her hands in a gesture and let them down again.

Alya spoke up in the silence that followed. “I know I’m not a part of the creative team, but I’ve got an idea.”

Chloe nodded at her. “Of course, we value everyone’s input.”

“I... well. I mean -” she hesitated, before excitedly proclaiming: “Superheroes.”

“That’s ... that’s great,” said Anciel. “I like that.”

Chloé nodded along.

“Yeah, sure, why not,” agreed Plagg. “What do you think Tikki, Mireille?”

“It works fine,” said Mireille and turned to Tikki.

“It does! It’s gonna fit the anonymity just as well, if not better!”

“Exactly!” Anciel spoke up again. “Superheroes themselves invite the concept of needing to keep one’s identity secret, so even people who won’t know about our thing beforehand, like Ms. Bourgeois said, will catch on with the superhero theme.”

“The popularity of superheroes has skyrocketed in the last decade too,” noted d’Aramitz. “But it also means the market is overfilled with anything superhero at the moment.”

“The market is, but Eurovision isn’t. I think it’s good idea, I don’t know why it didn’t cross my mind. And anyway, it’s always a lottery in Eurovision what will get popular and what will be seen as ‘trying too hard’.” Kurtzberg shrugged.

“Well, personally, I love it,” said Chat.

“Of course you do. You’ll finally reach your dream of becoming Sailor Moon,” teased Chloé. “But you’re right, it’s a great idea, thank you Ms. Césaire.”

“Ah, it’s ... it’s nothing.” Alya waved it off, but her cheeks flushed pink and Chloé’s lips formed a little soft smile.

She blinked out of it a second later, but the smirk on Chat Noir’s face told Marinette she wasn’t the only one who noticed it.

“What about you, Ladybug, you didn’t say anything yet,” asked Tikki.

“Oh, I ... yes, it’s a good idea, Alya. It’s gonna be fun playing a hero.” She smiled.

“Wait up!” Chat started next to her and turned to face her. “You know what? If we go with superheroes, we absolutely _have to_ cover [Heroes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sGOwFVUU0I).”

“You’re right, we do. It’d be such a missed opportunity, and I _love_ that song.” She grinned.

“Me too! I can play the whole thing on piano too, so I can play as we sing!”

“Great! It will be good promotional material too, and we can use it to sort of announce the theme change.” D’Aramitz nodded as she wrote that down.

“Did you have more thoughts on the act besides the theme, Ms. Césaire?” asked Chloé.

“Oh, yes! If we’re going for a strong theme, we can make a story out of it! We could have them fighting a supervillain  in the music video, or maybe stage a fight for the act? Give them some superpowers or -”

“Alya,” Marinette interrupted her. “That’s me you’re talking about. Doing a stage fight during our act is _not_ going to end up well, I’m going to trip all over myself at least once.”

“You did great in Destination,” Chat hurried to reassure her. “And it doesn’t have to be super long or involved or anything. Personally, I don’t fancy attempting to sing while pretending to kick supervillain butt either.”

“It could go in the instrumental break, so really not long. Besides, we don’t have to do it at all if you don’t want to,” said Tikki.

“Of course,” agreed Chat.

“It’s still a good idea though, we can keep it in reserve. We don’t need to leave here with a detailed act timetable, just a strong enough base so we can start preparing it.” Anciel sent a reassuring smile in Marinette’s direction, before looking down to finish taking his note on his tablet. “There will be a lot of polishing it up and small changes later during the preparations, there always is, and we will discuss them all with you two.”

“If we’re doing superheroes, does that mean we’ll get to wear superhero costumes on stage?” Chat asked.

Marinette gave him a stern side glance.

“I am _not_ wearing a skintight spandex suit in front of the whole of Europe. Nor a sailor scout uniform.”

He laughed.

“I actually meant more like sparkly jumpsuits with, like, capes.”

“Talk about an eyesore,” she retorted.

“Oh come on, we need to look memorable, something the viewers will notice.” He smirked and Marinette slowly turned to face him properly.

“Did you just quote [Love Love Peace Peace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMgW54HBOS0) at me?”

“Maybe we should listen and learn from it, _so we can be the best and win the Eurovision Song Contest_ ,” he switched into English as he sang the last part and Marinette couldn’t help but start laughing.

“Seriously A- ah, Chat. You’re really gonna go there?” asked Chloé, her voice completely deadpan, even as she stuttered over his name.

“Hm, I don’t know, Chloé, maybe he does have a point. I mean-” Marinette said with a fake serious face. “We can ... _Let the song begin with passion, let the wind begin to blow._ ”

Chat’s smile was impossibly wide, but he didn’t let it stop him from continuing the song.

“ _You can break the rules of fashion and your chance to win shall grow. Look into the TV camera so the audience can see._ ”

“ _That you’re lovable - not desperate, smile and they will vote for me._ ”

They fell apart in giggles.

“Yeah, you two were _clearly_ meant to do this together,” Plagg said, while finishing the last cheese danish from the refreshments tray.

Marinette averted her eyes and straightened up in her seat, reaching for her water glass to have something to do to avoid reacting to that.

“If I go back to the supervillain problem,” Chat said, also ignoring Plagg’s comment. “Are we keeping the backdancers for the act? We could use them as supervillains.”

“Oh, you know what I love?” piped up Mireille. “Costume changes. What if we had the backdancers dressed, like, normally, and then boom! Supervillain outfit.”

“I love that,” said Anciel.

“Or maybe we could do just one villain, get some bigger name dancer to show up for the fight,” proposed Kurtzberg.

“That might be better left for the music video.” Anciel shook his head. “It’d leave the two of them alone on the stage for most of the song and that works better for slower songs and intimate settings.”

“Could we get Xavier Ramier for that? I think he could be willing to do at least the music video with us,” said d’Aramitz.

Chloé nodded and wrote it down.

“I’ll call his agent and ask. We also wanted to get Melodie Bellamy to play the flute part.”

“Kubdel and Lê Chiến are still on choreography?” asked Anciel.

“Yes, they signed their contracts yesterday. Both the act and the MV. For the filming of which we're contracting either André Boucher or Nino Lahiffe, it depends on who has the time.”

Marinette felt Chat's attention go up at the mention of Nino Lahiffe's name - perhaps he didn't know his friend could be involved in this any more than she knew of Alya's participation.

“For the villains, should we keep with the animal theme you have going on?” asked Kurtzberg. “Like, an evil butterfly man who turns other people into villains? And that’s how the backdancers transform?”

“Good idea, but I don’t know if we could make it translate clearly on stage. We don’t want to overcomplicate things, so we don’t distract viewers from the actual song,” retorted Anciel.

“Doesn’t Xavier Ramier have this ... thing for pigeons?” pitched Tikki.

“Yeah, he does. Don’t remind me, what week of my life, shooting _that_ collaboration video. He literally set up pigeon feeding pauses in his contract.” Plagg rubbed his forehead.

“It could work though. It’s... weird, I’ll admit, but pigeons are very on brand for Paris,” said Chloé.

“We can call him Monsieur Pigeon. Think it will make him more likely to work with us?” Alya chuckled.

“Heh, probably,” chuckled Plagg. “You know what we could also do? Build a huge pigeon robot to be his sidekick. You know, like that parrot thing ... ugh, who was that...”

“What? When was that?” asked Marinette.

“You mean [Dustin the Turkey](http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/2445296-3x2-340x227.jpg)? Or the bird dancer from [My Dream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwgF3TC2Kj0)?” tried Tikki.

“No, no, a genuine huge parrot robot,” Plagg pulled up his phone to try look what he thought up. “Like from the early 2000’s.”

Chat shook his head slowly.

“I have no idea.”

Plagg grimaced. “The closest thing I can find is the cardboard cut-outs of people with animal heads from [2003 Austria](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZJt6Gv4XPk), but I don’t think that’s it.”

Chloé made a face of distaste.

“Whatever you thought it was, we can’t do that. I know I said we need to embrace the ridiculous, but this is too much. Besides, it would be a pain to design and make a functional huge pigeon robot in the time we have.”

“I mean, there’s this guy in our special effects team that also specialises in practical effects as a side gig and he’d _love_ the challenge,” opposed Anciel.

“Also, we didn’t do anything really fun since [Moustache](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjkqciwP034) and that was when, 2014?” added Plagg.

“Yes, and _that_ was a big dark spot in our Eurovision records,” she retorted.

“Think of it this way, the motto is ‘Best of the Past’, yes? We can do a tribute to the 2000s silly era with Jacques. Just imagine it - a huge pigeon is rolled on stage, then bursts open with feather confetti and out jumps Ramier, dressed in a pigeon costume.”

“Did you... did you just name the nonexistent pigeon robot?”

“Yes.”

Plagg looked very satisfied with himself.

Chloé groaned. “There’s forty second gap to prepare everything on stage in between the songs _and_ the clean up afterwards, while the postcard plays, unless we can negotiate  a cut to the hosts to stall and you want a pigeon robot to burst into confetti?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe we could keep the pigeon for the MV and just leave it at, like, hologram pigeons for the act,” conceded Anciel. “Or Jacques can just be there in the background, lurking.”

Chloé sighed.

“We’ll see. I’ll delegate it to Mr. St. James to have the final say on that.”

 

* * *

 

After the meeting ended, Marinette, Alya, Chat and Chloé decided to go to a small nearby café.

“So I can properly meet your friend and you can meet mine,” Chat said with a cheeky smile.

Which left them sitting on a low corner sofa in the back of the café, chatting amicably, each with a hot drink in their hands. Chloé picked the place and reassured them nobody will bother them there nor care about the fact that two of them are wearing masquerade masks.

“I’ve been thinking, since Tikki mentioned Dustin the Turkey, do you think Ireland would go for [Irlande douze points](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps3kxGo_gro), part two? Best of the past, right?” said Chat.

Alya laughed.

“Who knows, maybe. That reminds me, did you guys hear Britain is arguing with EBU whether they can send in a song in Tolkien’s elvish?”

“What are they arguing about?” Chloé looked confused. “They wouldn’t be the first to send a song in a fictional language and it’s not English, but comes from there, so it should fit the rules.”

“Well, yes, I’m sure any other year no one would have a problem with it. It’s just that they came with it _now_ , when EBU pretty much banned using English to give other languages a chance to shine, and they’re acting as if they don’t have Welsh or Scottish Gaelic available, not to mention the heaps of languages minority populations brought with them. It’s just iffy.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right,” Chloé agreed.

“What do you think Australia will do?” asked Marinette. “Did you hear anything from them, Alya?”

She shook her head.

“They’re deciding in February, I think. But it’s really interesting seeing how every country reacts to the language rule. It will definitely be a great show this year.”

“Hah, true. I should probably stop listening to every new entry that gets announced, everyone’s so good.” Marinette nodded along as she spoke.

“You know,” started Chat. “Not that I’m not happy that all of our work managed to get us where we are now, but sometimes I still feel a little ... guilty? That it was us who won Destination? Like, we do French every single year and this would have been a great opportunity to give the spotlight to someone else.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Also, personally, I wouldn’t really mind if we lost, this whole thing is just so overwhelming.”

She sighed and leaned into Chat to lay her head on his shoulder.

“We could also hang out like normal people by now,” she added.

“Yeah. I’d really love that,” he replied softly, laying his head on top of hers.

“Okay, I was going to wait until we were alone,” Chloé spoke up. “But I can’t hold it any longer. Are you two, like, together, or are you just ... like _that_.”

Marinette felt her face turn very hot very quickly.

“I know A- ah, Chat loves to hang all over people and also that he wouldn’t shut up about it if he started dating anyone, but you also didn’t tell me you apparently applied to the freaking Eurovision, so I thought it’s better to ask.”

Alya burst into laughter.

“Yeah, before I knew Ladybug was, well, _her_ , I legit thought you two were dating. But I already asked and apparently they _are_ just like that.”

Marinette pouted, but didn’t say anything. She already told Alya about her feelings situation at their sleepover slash interrogation session back in December and didn’t feel like reliving it with Chat present. So she continued to stare at the coffee table in front of her and took a sip of her tea.

“So what, _some_ people just like to show affection a lot,” she heard Chat say in a teasing way, but his voice was a little more defensive than she’d expect.

Seems this was something he felt sensitive about. Well, time to stop worrying if he minds how physically affectionate she is towards him. Not that it ever was a big worry, it’s just by now she knew he wasn’t really one to complain about things and her anxieties got the better of her sometimes.

“I know, honey, that’s why I asked,” Chloé said in a matter-of-fact tone, but not unkindly and laid a hand on Chat’s arm.

“You see,” Alya started saying, looking at Chloé. “On a different note, I also had a question. Are you the former mayor’s daughter, or is it just a name coincidence?”

Chloé winced.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“Huh. You actually went to our, uh, my school - Collège François Dupont? You were a year above me.”

Chloé placed her cup of coffee on the low table and rubbed her hands together nervously.

“Oh. Right. I don’t remember anyone resembling you, but still, I’m so very sorry for being such a nuisance back then. It, well, I was taking it out my issues on everyone else instead of trying to deal with them. I know it’s not an excuse for my behaviour, but... Just wanted to apologize.”

“Yeah, we didn’t actually interact, since I was a year under you, but I heard a _lot_ and it wasn’t really lining up with you today, so I wasn’t even sure if it’s you.” Alya shrugged.

“I got a great therapist since then and she did be a world of good. My first two were ... not working for me.” She grimaced.

Chat let out a little laugh, startling Marinette from his shoulder, so she sat up straight again.

“I still can’t believe you bit your second therapist, though,” he snickered.

“She deserved it.” Chloé flipped her ponytail over her shoulder.

“I’m not disagreeing; I just can’t believe you actually did that!”

“You _bit_ your therapist?” Alya asked, disbelieving.

Marinette went to the same school, and was happy Alya managed to correct herself before spilling that piece of information out, but it meant she heard her fair share of Chloé Bourgeois stories - way more than Alya, even, since she only transferred there for the last two years - and well, Chloé biting a therapist wasn’t something she couldn’t imagine happening.

“Yes. Not only was she a garbage human being, but she also managed to dig me _deeper_ in my problems than I was before, so thanks for nothing, idiot, way to fail at your job.”

She took a deep breath to calm down. “Sorry, didn’t mean to get worked up about her.”

“We understand Chloé.” Chat leaned over Marinette and patted her shoulder.

“Yeah. Besides, you seem to be doing well now,” said Alya.

Chloé smiled at her. “I’ll say, I’m way happier now. I just had to realize a lot of things about me - a lot of bad things, things that were okay, but I didn’t know that back then and some good things too. Some of these things took me a long time to accept. But enough about me - how do you like your work so far, Alya, I heard it’s all new for you.”

Alya started talking about all the interesting things happening and how excited she was, even mentioning her previous reservations on leaving her journalistic dream on hold, but admitting she’s enjoying working with the team a lot, so she doesn’t really mind so much anymore. Chloé watched her with a smile on her face, listening intently, asking more questions if she wanted to find out more about anything.

“They left us in the dust, didn’t they,” Marinette murmured into Chat’s ear after a while.

“They did,” he replied with a bemused smile. “I’m glad they’re getting along though.”

“Yeah, me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: A Wild Supervillain Appears
> 
> Delegation: the whole group of people that’s involved in the country’s performance, managed by Head of Delegation (who can have one or two assistants called Assistant Heads), and includes Head of Press, the performers, song writers, composers, and the whole entourage. Can vary from under 20 to 50 people.
> 
> Sorry for the longer wait, my September (and October) was way busier than I expected it to be. In other news, I passed my state exams and am now a bachelor (yay!), THEN I got the opportunity to belatedly squeeze into our masters program, where I wasn’t planning to apply, so I had a week to prepare for the admission interview (part of which I completely bombed, unsurprisingly) and THEN my semester literally started right after the weekend, and damn, it is kicking my butt. I also start at eight every day, which I haven’t since like, third year of high school and I’m dying. So yeah, that’s why I’m later than I said I’d be. 
> 
> I hope this super duper long chapter made up for the wait! Really, these chapters are getting longer and longer. I want to make them brief and light-hearted and fun but then I get stuck in “but how would that work out realistically though” land and here we are.


	6. A Wild Supervillain Appears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Filming of the music video and the Pigeon Factor nobody accounted for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to post this before the end of the year, but I didn't finish it until, uh, now. That said, it's still the first, so I'd count it. Happy New Year to everyone, I hope it's filled with health and happiness and that everything you wish for comes to fruition! <3  
> Enjoy the new chapter!

“...five, six, look, eight. Step, two, bump!”

Adrien was breathing heavily as the music ended.  Ladybug, standing in front of him in a simple mask and work out clothes (red and black - she wore the combination often, saying she liked to match her mask), her hair pulled up in a messy bun, was also catching up on her breath. Adrien really liked the ending of their choreography, where he and Ladybug, tired from the just won ‘fight', looked up into each other’s eyes, gave a warm smile and walked towards each other for a victory fist bump.

Their trainers, a tiny woman called Alix Kubdel and her towering partner Lê Chiến Kim, clapped a few times.

“Great!” said Kim, nodding along.

The two were in charge of preparing them for filming the music video. They liked to work together as dance instructors, though they both taught parkour too, and Alix also dabbled into martial arts, making the duo ideal for this job. The music video was devised by Marc Anciel and Adrien’s best friend Nino, who was hired as a director, to mimic an episode of a children’s superhero show, with Ladybug and Chat Noir as the main stars, running around Parisian rooftops and having fun, when a cunning supervillain - a role very enthusiastically taken up by Xavier Ramier - attacks them, they fight and the superheroes win.

It was fairly simple and straightforward, but it was a lot of work on Ladybug and Adrien’s side. Thankfully, they already went through a bit of training when they prepared for their Destination stage choreography, and after winning they were told to keep up their assigned work out routines, so it wasn’t like they were starting from scratch. Still, putting together the basics of parkour enough to look good on camera with only editing tricks to help out _and_ a staged fight against a supervillain _and_ a few shorter dance sequences was a lot to handle in the few weeks they had to prepare for the filming.

Ladybug and Adrien let their hands fall from position, Ladybug reached for her water bottle and Adrien for his towel, to dab out the sweat on his face. They were just finishing up with their last training before filming, polishing up the last of their choreo.

“Good work guys, that was a good run. Now we’ll run it again, each of the sequences, without me and Alix counting, just the music. Also, when I said you don’t have to sing all the parts of the chorus when you’re out of breath, I meant it. You’ll be taped over anyway, no one cares, and faking singing always looks way better than the obvious gulps of air you’re taking to try and sing everything. We’ll have way more time to work on that before Eurovision, don’t worry.”

Adrien nodded and threw his towel back onto his bag at the side of the dance studio, and took a swing from his own water bottle. He looked back at Ladybug, who was stretching out her calves in between the runs. An impish smile crossed his face.

“Hey, Ladybug?”

She looked up at him from where she was stretching on the floor.

“Yeah?”

“Great work. But, you see, I can’t go on,” he sighed in an overly dramatic manner.

She made a confused but also amused expression, cocking her head to the side.

“I just can’t go on, no more,” he repeated and then continued, singing in English: “When you look this freaking [beautiful](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jSrBdN4b5c)!”

She laughed out loud and rolled her eyes good naturedly.

“You dork,” she shook her head, still smiling.

“Astounding,” said Alix, with zero inflexion in her voice and a completely deadpan expression. “If we could go back to the training, please? You can go be disgusting after that, when I don’t have to see you.”

Adrien laughed and tossed his water bottle in the direction of the rest of his stuff.

 

* * *

 

“So, what do you think?” Clément Descoteaux asked.

He stood next to the two of them in front of his studio mirrors. The stylishly dressed man was their costume designer and just presented them with his finalised product. They already saw the designs and tried them on for a few fittings, but it’s always a big moment when the garment is finally ready to go.

Adrien was dressed in a form fitting black suit, with a zipper down the front, black boots and leather gloves with claws on the tips of the fingers. Black cat ears were perched on his head, but his absolute favourite part had to be the big golden bell attached to the zipper tab, sitting at the dip in his clavicles.

Also greatly appreciated was the fact, that the whole suit was lined with thick fleece, so not only was the suit not uncomfortably skintight and exposing (the dance belt he wore underneath also helped greatly), but also decently warm - an important fact, since the filming was to be done outside and it was the end of January.

“I love it!” he said, turning around to see his tail better. “I like the switch from a ‘real’ cat tail to the belt, it makes me feel way less weird.”

Ladybug giggled next to him.

“You weren’t the only one feeling weird about that,” she said and then turned to Descoteaux. “I love my suit too, it looks great. And I love the fit of the jacket, it sits way better like this.”

She was dressed in a suit similar to his, just lacking the zipper and sporting a bold red and black polka dot pattern. Her boots and gloves went higher than his and she had an additional jacket, colour blocked in red and black, and with three quarter sleeves. She wasn’t too happy with the original suit designs, worrying that they’ll be too thin and that she’ll feel exposed, but was convinced that the thickness of the fabric will prevent that. And of course, if she still felt uncomfortable, a different design could have been chosen.

“They turned out great, Clément,” agreed Rose, from her seat next to the mirrors. “I’m sure it will work out beautifully with the hair and make up too.”

She had a notebook in her hands, writing in notes for their styling.  

“You feel okay, nothing too tight, too loose? I or my team can still manage a small alternation before the filming,” said Descoteaux.

Adrien stretched a few times the way he was taught back in his modelling days, and then proceeded to stretch more, like he did before their trainings.

“Everything feels fine,” reported Ladybug, done with her own stretches. “Thank you Mr. Descoteaux.”

He nodded in thanks.

“I’m glad to hear that. Then we’re done for today, you can take the suits off and go on your way.”

Adrien smiled and went to change back to his own clothes in the set up changing area. In his experience, models changed in the designers studio pretty much anywhere, but in consideration for him and Ladybug, Rose and Descoteaux set up a small parted off area for them to change.

“I was almost ready to start sweating in this, that’s great,” said Ladybug from the other side of the folding screen. “I was worried I’ll freeze to death during filming but these are really warm, especially with the jacket on too.”

“Yeah, me too,” he replied, trying to tug the suit off his right leg.

Even though the suits weren’t super tight, they were still quite hard to take off if one didn’t have a place to sit. Which Adrien didn’t, but he wasn’t going to complain about it. It was nice enough they got a changing space.

“Has a decision been already made for their red carpet designer?” he heard Descoteaux ask Rose.

“No, it wasn’t. The higher ups are still debating, but so far the choices are good. Well, I heard someone wants to get Gabriel Agreste for that, but-”

Adrien finally freed his right foot and promptly fell on his butt with a loud bang.

“You okay, Chat?” Ladybugs worried voice came from behind the folding screen.

But Adrien couldn’t answer, he was too busy trying not to bust his gut laughing, lying on the floor, his suit still pooled around his left leg and his mask crooked on his face.

“Th - They wanted - hah - Gabriel - hahaha - Gabriel Agreste?” He made a weird sound trying to catch his breath. “Gabriel Agreste, doing Eurovision red carpet?” He laughed again. “He’d probably catch an allergic reaction and die if anyone proposed him with that.”

Rose giggled.

“Yeah, that’s what I told them. I mean, he’s kinda famous for hating on Eurovision, so I didn’t even believe them when they first told me, but you know what? I’d pay to see his face if they actually went and offered the job to him.”

 

* * *

 

After getting the contract for filming the music video, Nino was ecstatic with the whole thing, even before finding out that _this_ was the super secret project his roommate has been working on. And yes, Adrien didn’t tell him beforehand either, he just loved the bewildered look on his best friend’s face and the prolonged “duuuuude” that followed.

Adrien and Nino were chatting, standing a little off in front of the Eiffel tower, on a Tuesday morning, the only time they could get the little area around the tower bordered off for filming. They were mainly filming in front of it or to the side, to avoid both the Quai Branly road and the Champ de Mars park, which they could not board off and therefore were full of traffic and people respectively. Though the chilly wind and off season date did mean the park was emptier that usual.

Adrien was already in costume with his styling done, and an assistant has put a big warm jacket over him and a hot drink in his hands. They were watching over the bustling scene, mainly the huge pigeon construction that was being unloaded from a delivery van by two men.

“Hey, you,” a voice popped up to Adrien’s right.

“Alya! Hi, what brings you here so early? Are you here for the whole filming?” Adrien greeted her with the customary kisses.

“Yeah, Ladybug and I came together, so I’m here earlier. She’s getting dressed now,” Alya pointed towards a trailer parked to the side of the site, where the filming crew set up their base.

Nino cleared his throat.

“Oh, sorry, I forgot - Alya, this is my friend Nino Lahiffe, he’s the director for our music video and postcard. Nino, this is Alya Césaire, our press manager from France TV.”

“A pleasure to meet you.” Nino greeted her with la bise.

“Yes, it is,” she smiled. “You probably won’t remember, but we actually went to collège together.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, we were a year apart.” Alya nodded and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

Nino rubbed his chin as he tried to kick start his memory.

“Wait, I think I do remember you! Were you in the journalism club?”

Alya laughed. “That I was! I was the one who wrote in the school paper about your first school film contest admission, Mr. Hotshot Filmmaker. Sure, you lost, but the spark was there.”

“Aw, shucks you.”

Adrien patted his best friends shoulder.

“I’ll leave you two to it and go see if I can find Ladybug. She wanted to be here when Jacques gets started up.”

He turned and walked to the base, first stopping by catering to dispose of his now empty tea cup.

“Ladybug?” he called, knocking on the trailer door.

“Come in,” came the muffled answer.

He opened the door and slipped in, quickly shutting the door closed again, so the trailer doesn’t lose any warmth. It was shared for all three of them that appear in the video, mostly as a place to change and get their hair and make up done. Ladybug seemed to be ready to go, just chatting with her make up artist and showing off some yoyo tricks.

When Marc Anciel asked them if they had any requests for the superhero storyline the music video will follow, Ladybug surprised them all when she asked if her character could fight the supervillain with a yo-yo. Apparently, she was a yo-yoing champion as a kid and the idea of a superhero fighting with one was something she’d missed in all of her favourite childhood cartoons back then. When Anciel asked Adrien if he also has any hidden talents, still a bit stupefied, he only shook his head and laughed. His fencing skills were something he felt very proud of, but superheroes are not exactly known for walking around with rapiers. He was happy with the staff his character got assigned later.

“Morning!” She smiled at him. “What’s up, we’re not meant to start till later, no? I thought I have a bit more time left, I didn’t get to having a breakfast yet.”

Adrien shook his head. “We’re not, but Jacques is almost ready and you said you wanted to see him in action.”

Ladybug jumped up from her chair excitedly and reached for her own thick jacket to pull over her costume.

“Oh, yes! Thank you! I wouldn’t want to miss that!”

She was already out of the door when he caught up to her and caught her wrist. “Wait up. Let’s go to catering first. If we don’t go now, you may not have a chance to have a breakfast between Ramier’s set and ours.”

Ladybug wrinkled her nose at the thought and changed her course.

“Ugh, you’re right.”

With a warm drink and two chocolatines secured in her hands, they watched over the scene unfolding under the Eiffel tower. Two camera operators, few more people handling lightning, a director of photography and several more people were bustling about. It was interesting to see just how many people were involved in the creation of the video. Adrien had only ever been involved in a few filmed advertisements back in his modelling days, but the bustle of the scene being set still brought back a bout of nostalgia.

Well, he thought and looked at his partner, standing next to him munching on her pastry, he had a great company now, which was a big improvement. His father didn’t want anybody else to star in the ads Adrien was filming, so he usually ended up standing awkwardly aside, not knowing what to do between takes and too shy to strike up conversation with all the busy looking adults around him. At least on photoshoots he was familiar with the crew, so he felt more at ease and chatted with them.

“I’ve been thinking, you know how we said we’re going to cover Heroes?” he asked Ladybug.

“Uh-hm,” she mumbled with her mouth full.

“I’d love to try do more of that, if you wanted. I really like [J’ai cherché](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQysGibXphE), so that would be nice. What do you think?”

Ladybug made an interested sound as she mulled it over.

“Yeah, why not? Should be fun.” She smiled up at him. "How about we do-"

A commotion at the site in front of them interrupted them. The huge pigeon robot that was constructed for the video had just come to life, spreading his wings far out and toppling over a green screen hiding the buildings at the side of the park.

“Sorry, sorry,” called out the short man, who introduced himself as Max Kanté. “I guess I had to have calculated the distance wrong.”

He rushed forward, stuffing his robot remote into a pocket in his pants, already waving to the other robot handler, Ivan Bruel, to help him pick the screen back up. Thankfully it didn’t tear, so they could just move Jacques a bit farther away and resume the tests. The robot reached the height of a tall man, mainly consisted of metal construction, but had a thin coat of feathers in aesthetic splotches of real-like and metal ones. The mechanism to operate it wasn’t terribly complicated - after all, the construction was rushed and there wasn’t much the machine had to do, but it was still very impressive.

*

The initial impressiveness of Jacques faded a bit as the filming commenced. It seemed that even though there wasn’t anything wrong with the robot itself, it did seem to cause a lot of tiny problems. Not any big stuff, but small delays to the filming that started to frustrate everyone involved. Nino kept looking at his wrist watch, consulting their timetable he printed out along with the screenplay.

The scene where M. Pigeon burst out of the robot, which slowly rose its parts to put itself back together as Ramier danced his solo around it was finally done after several more retakes than Nino would like by the pinched expression on his face. Now they were filming the choreo part when Ladybug and Chat Noir fought M. Pigeon at the base of the tower, the second and last scene Jacques was needed for.

When Adrien’s nose first started twitching and caused him to sniffle, he thought it was just the heat his body built up while dancefighting making his nose runny. When his eyes started to water too, he realised his mistake.

“Merde,” he cursed under his breath and sneezed.

“What’s going on?” Nino asked frowning and gestured to the camera operators to stop filming.

“Jacques,” Adrien answered, walked off the scene and gratefully took the tissue an assistant handled him.

Nino groaned. Ladybug walked over to Adrien with a confused expression.

“Did you forget to mention it or did you not even think of that? Damn it. Adéle?” he called for one of the assistants.

“What is it?” Ladybug laid a hand on Adrien’s shoulder, squeezing it lightly.

“Feather allergy. Apparently they used real feathers for Jacques, I assumed they’ll be synthetic, so I forgot about all of this.” He gestured to his slightly reddened face and blew his nose.

“Everybody take a break,” Nino called out, then walked over to Adrien and Ladybug. “I sent Adéle for some allergy meds, bro. You take five in between. We have most of the footage for the scene done, we’ll have to run it at least twice more and then Jacques goes away and we’re moving up on the tower, okay?”

“Yeah, thanks bro.”

Somebody put his jacket around him. He looked up to see Ladybug, wearing her own poofy jacket and holding out a cup of tea for him to take.

“So, a feather allergy?” she asked.

He gave her a rueful smile.

“Yeah.”

“So, I guess you won’t bring me any dead birds as presents then?” she teased.

*

Despite the delay caused by Adrien’s allergic reaction, the rest of the filming went fairly smooth.

The crew moved the set up on a platform about halfway up the Eiffel tower, where the beginning of the video took place. With drone operated cameras the filming crew took several shots of the tower itself and some of Ladybug and Chat Noir climbing the structure to meet up on the platform. Clever camera angles and closeness of the tower's maintenance equipment helped to create the illusion of them scaling the tower in full superhero fashion, when in reality they were always kept only a little way off secure flooring, to minimize the chance of injury.

Up on the platform, Chat Noir kneeled down to present Ladybug with a deep red rose and kiss her hand in greeting. They talked for a while, mostly Adrien trying to make Ladybug laugh at cheesy jokes, since their words won’t be making it in the finished video, but will make a nice behind-the-scenes feature for their social media. He also lead her around in a few steps of a messy jive, which they pretended to be interrupted from by a flock of pigeons that were released when Jacques spawned at the bottom of the tower and alerted them to the appearance of M. Pigeon. Thankfully those were to be added in post production.

At last they filmed their practiced choreography for the chorus and were ready to pack up and move to the other location.

*

“First the Eiffel tower, now this. Seriously, if I don’t fall down to my death soon, it’ll be a miracle,” Ladybug complained.

They were taking a pause, after shooting their parkour race after M. Pigeon over the roofs of a block of Haussmann’s townhouses. There was a lot of editing magic involved - while they could manage the basics, cat passes and balance landings from short distances thanks to Alix and Kim - there was no way they could learn to scale walls in the time they had to prepare, so they simply filmed the initial jumps and then the leap over separately. The most they did was a flip from a wall diving the roofs. Webster, Alix called it, though she did note that Ladybug’s looked a bit more like a front kickover, showing her childhood gymnastic background.

“Well, we only have one more short fight scene to go, before we move the fight down to the park,” he tried to comfort her, though he did understand.

She wasn’t the only one unnerved by the height of the buildings, as evidenced by the fact that only the bare minimum of people were up here filming (really, just Nino and two camera operators with drones), while the rest prepared the set down on the ground. At least the roofs were wide enough and they kept in the middle, so chances of falling were minimal.

“Yeah, but still. I’d prefer the whole thing be done on the ground.”

“But think of the aesthetics!” Nino came over to where they were sitting leaning against a chimney. “It’s going to look absolutely awesome. Jumping over streets, the upended stakes of the race, Eiffel tower in the background like the Tokyo tower in an old anime...”

Adrien stiffled a laugh.

“I thought we’re supposed to be a superhero cartoon, not a magical girl show.”

“You’re the one who talks my ear off about anime, you suffer the consequences when I get inspired,” he said with a fake snooty voice, but his expression quickly dissolved at Adrien’s exaggerated pouty face.

Ladybug chuckled before sighing.

“Still, that’s what green screen studios are for.” She shrugged. “But then they’d have to build us the rooftops in the studio and France TV didn’t want to co finance that for the few shots we need, so here we are, I know. And I did agree to this, so really, I have nothing to complain about.”

“So what, it’s fun to complain anyway though.” Adrien knocked her shoulder with his.

She laughed a little. “Oh shut up, you.”

Nino turned around to check the set and then back to look at them. “I came here to ask if you’re ready for the next scene. It seems Ramier just came back from his scheduled pigeon feeding pause so we’re all okay to go.”

Ladybug nodded, so Adrien shrugged off his jacket, stood up and extended a hand to offer her help.

“Thanks,” she said after he pulled her up. “Let’s do this then.”

*

“Congrats, everyone, that’s a wrap!” Nino called out and gave a short clap. The sun was not far from setting in the late afternoon and a cold wind was picking up, so everyone hurried to pack up.

Ladybug was the first to duck into their trailer to change back, so Adrien helped packing for a while before moving to the side to wait for his turn. Nino appeared beside him, after making sure everyone knew what to do and overseeing the break of the set.

“Good job, dude. You did great.” He clapped his back. “You were especially good at avoiding the imaginary pigeons, guess you have a lot of practise with that, huh?”

Adrien rolled his eyes good naturedly and shook his head.

“Thank you. Ladybug and Ramier were doing great too, I’m glad we made it work.” He turned to his best friend. “You too. It was fun working with you on the director’s chair.”

“Well, I do my best.”

He adjusted his cap, his happiness from the compliment clear on his face. Silence settled between them.

“I’ll have to thank Kubdel and Lê Chiến for the choreo again. The final fight looked really great, I can’t wait to see it after the editing team is done with that,” Nino said.

Adrien nodded along. “Me too. I’m excited to see what they’ll come up with for the act.”

Ladybug stepped out of the trailer, bundled up in a coat and a big scarf.

“I’m running off,” she said. “It was great working with you, Nino, I’m looking forward to the postcard filming.”

She leaned in to do la bise.

“It was a pleasure, Ladybug.”

Nino adjusted his cap like a boat captain would. 

“You too, Chaton. See you soon.” She moved to hug Adrien close to her.

“You did amazing, my lady. I’ll be counting down the days.”

She muffled a laugh into his shoulder. “Flirt. I’ll text you tonight when I inevitably suddenly remember a million absolutely embarrassing things I did today.”

With that she let him go and ran off to Alya, who was waiting for her on the side, finished with her talk with one of the technicians. They both waved at them and turned to leave.

“Bro,” Nino said and Adrien realized he forgot to put his hand down from when he waved back at the two retreating women.

Quickly he let it down, trying to seem like nothing happened as he made his way to the trailer to change. By the snickers escaping his best friend, he was not at all successful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: A Slip of the Tongue
> 
> Fun fact: I Can’t Go On is a nice song, but damn I just don’t like the way the singer is looking at me through the camera. J’ai cherché, on the other hand, I absolutely love. It’s a shame the live performance wasn’t as good though.
> 
> Postcard: a short video spot introducing the country/performer(s) played before the act during the live events.
> 
> As a side note, my finals season is starting soon and will keep me busy, so no idea when the next chapter will be - it might not be till February, but procrastination is strong with me so it may be earlier. We're also at the midway point, so yay for that!! (Or almost there - I'm contemplating adding a chapter so the one before the Final doesn't end up ridiculously long)
> 
> Question, is there anyone here reading this who’s not familiar with Eurovision at all? I understand it’s pretty, not niche because it’s a big thing, but yes niche, because general public doesn’t really care too much about it. I just wanted to know, how I’m doing in the explaining things department - are you getting lost, am I overly explanatory, do I give details nobody cares about while skipping things you’d like to know? Anything really, just let me know so I can address the issue. I wouldn’t want to lose your interest over something that’s easily fixed.

**Author's Note:**

> BTW if any of you read [Embrasse moi, dis moi que tu m'aimes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11921025), this is the multichapter I was talking about.
> 
> Also, I’m gonna confess here - I know jack sh*t about how the music industry works. Or how Eurovision itself works. This is written for fun. I took artistic licence over stuff I couldn’t (or didn’t have the willpower) to research so if there’s any mistakes, well, I’m sorry but I’m not a non-fiction author. If you want to correct me on things though, I'll be happy to learn new stuff!


End file.
